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razzle-zazzle · 1 month ago

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Whumptober Day 15: Childhood Trauma

Moment of Clarity

1649 Words; Runaways AU, pre-canon

TW for mentions of death

AO3 ver

Cole was sketching again.

He did it every so often, though he’d never let Lloyd see his sketchbook, despite Lloyd’s best puppy dog eyes. But that was fine—Lloyd knew where Cole put the sketchbook in his bag, and had already gone through it once. It was more about the principle of the thing, really—if Cole willingly let Lloyd look, then he probably wasn’t about to abandon Lloyd.

But Cole had refused to show off the sketchbook tonight, so Lloyd had subsided into watching the firewood slowly burn to ash. His sleeping bag was still rolled up behind him; Cole was sitting cross-legged on his. It was probably fine, though; Cole had shown no inclination to ditching Lloyd. Yet.

But it was important to keep track of, Lloyd knew. He wasn’t stupid, okay? He knew he was difficult. And he knew that being the son of an evil warlord tended to put most people off. He was loud and disruptive and had too-red eyes and little bumps on his head just barely hidden by his hair. Lloyd knew that he was easy to abandon and run away from, because everyone in his life had done it at some point. His own mother hadn’t even wanted him!

Speaking of…

“Why are you out on your own, anyway?” Lloyd asked. He had technically asked a question kind of like it, when he and Cole had initially met, and Cole’s response at the time had been a simple “none of your business.” But they’d known each other a while, now, and Cole seemed intent on keeping his promise—though Lloyd couldn’t fully trust that, not now, not ever—so maybe… Cole might open up?

Lloyd was horribly curious—it was something of a curse. And he had found an old school ID when he looked at Cole’s sketchbook, though it was wayyy different from the ones Darkley’s used and not a name Lloyd recognized.

Cole hmmed, shoulders hunching as he focused in on the page before him. “Ran away.” He grunted. Lloyd waited a moment longer for Cole to elaborate, but he didn’t.

So Lloyd opened his own mouth. “Was it from that school? The uh…” What was the name again? “Marty Oppen… Open…. that school?”

Cole was looking at Lloyd now, something like suspicion in his eyes and red on his cheeks. “How do you know about—” He cut himself off with a huff. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

“So you did!” Lloyd concluded, pleased. “Was it a boarding school? Was it bigger than Darkley’s? How mean were the teachers? What were they teaching?” He imagined Cole in a classroom much like the science lab at Darkley’s, an evil death ray on the table before him. Just as quickly as it came, the image went away—Lloyd had seen Cole’s drawings. Death ray designs just didn’t fit him.

Cole blinked owlishly at the onslaught of questions. “Uh… yes; I don’t know, I’ve never been to Darkley’s; maybe? They were really stuffy, and—” His shoulders drew in again, expression shifty. “I’m not answering that last question.”

“What!” Lloyd gasped, laying down on the dirt and propping his face up on his hands. “But you gotta! I mean,” he added, as convincingly as he could, “You know what Darkley’s teaches, so why can’t I know what Marty Open-hemmer’s teaches? It’s only fair.”

“I’ll tell you the moment you can say the name right.” Cole promised, though it sounded an awful lot like a joke.

“How is it said?” Lloyd probed, folding his arms and resting his chin on them. From down here, with the fire between them to the side, Cole looked almost unreal, the flickering light dancing across his face.

“Ma—” Cole started, only to stop as he realized. “You’re not getting me that easy, you little shit.”

“It was worth a try.” Lloyd shrugged, lightly kicking the dirt.

Silence filled their little camp, the fire and the gentle scritch-scratch of Cole’s pencil the only real sound.

Lloyd rolled over, staring up at the darkened sky above, at the tiny embers rising from the fire, at the twinkling stars and the clouds that covered them. It was a half moon tonight. He had no idea how Cole was drawing with just the light from the fire—which probably explained all the little frustrated noises Cole was making.

Something else occurred to Lloyd. Something Cole did at—well, not every town, but often enough to be just another part of their routine. Lloyd sat up, looked at Cole, and spoke.

“Who are you sending those letters to?” Lloyd folded his knees in to rest his chin on them as he watched Cole put his sketchbook away.

Cole jolted, staring at Lloyd for a moment. His jaw worked as he considered Lloyd’s question, several emotions Lloyd wasn’t sure how to parse flitting across his face. “My dad.” He said, softly.

“Oh.” Lloyd’s own father hadn’t really… from what Lloyd knew, nobody had actually seen Lord Garmadon for years. His father had sent his shadow to visit Lloyd at Darkley’s, on rare occasion, but Lloyd otherwise hadn’t met his dad. “Do you and your dad… get along?”

Cole made a sound halfway between an amused snort and annoyed sigh. “He doesn’t know where I am.” He admitted, which wasn’t really an answer. “He doesn’t know I’m running around with the world’s most annoying gremlin—” He cut himself off. “He thinks I’m still at Mar—that school.”

That… Lloyd thought back to his own parents. His own dad probably didn’t know he wasn’t at Darkley’s anymore—he hadn’t sent his shadow to visit Lloyd at all. And his mother…

Well, at least Cole knew what his father thought of him.

“What about your mom?” Lloyd asked, suddenly not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

Cole looked stricken, for a moment, before his expression turned thunderous. He glared at the fire, mouth drawn back in what might have been a snarl or what might have been a grimace. “She’s…” He swallowed. “She died less than a year ago.”

“Oh.” Lloyd cringed against his knees. “Sorry.” He hadn’t meant to upset Cole—

“‘S not your fault.” Cole muttered, voice tired. He laid back, staring up at the sky.

“Is that why your dad doesn’t know where you are?” Lloyd asked, then immediately cringed because why was he still talking, didn’t he know how to shut up—

Cole laughed, harsh and grim. “Ohhhh, don’t get me started! Mom’s gone, and all he ever does is go out and sing and dance and it falls to me to be responsible for everything, because first master forbid he stick around to tend to the garden or wash the dishes or do the laundry or—” He cut himself off, throwing his arm over his face as he made a drawn out sort of groan, sounding so shaky compared to usual. “And then he packs me up and sends me off to go to school and follow in his footsteps, like he wasn’t already pushing me hard enough—I don’t want to sing or dance! I’m never going to be what you want me to be!”

Lloyd shrunk back a bit. That was… a lot. Like, more than he felt able to unpack. But, wait—

“Sing or dance?” Lloyd asked, suddenly struck with a strong suspicion as to what that Marty school was for. “Is that what you went to Marty’s for?” He grinned, a giggle in his voice as he tried to imagine what that’d even look like.

“Shut up.” Cole groused, which only made Lloyd actually giggle. Cole groaned his annoyance to the sky, and Lloyd hid his mouth behind his hands as he imagined Cole in a tutu.

Cole sat up so suddenly that Lloyd squeaked, his laughter dissolving into worry. But Cole didn’t move any further, instead fixing Lloyd with a peculiar stare that was almost uncomfortable in its intensity.

“You don’t have to follow in your dad’s footsteps. You know that, right?” He asked, and Lloyd found, not for the first, third, or sixth time, that Cole could still say things that absolutely boggled him. “Everyone that treats you like shit because of your dad, but they’re wrong.” Cole said it with such conviction—it was almost enough for Lloyd to believe it.

“You’re not your dad.” Cole added. “You’re you.” His piece said, he laid back down, kicking dirt onto the fire and shuffling so that he was actually in his sleeping bag instead of on top of it.

Lloyd frowned. Well, he knew he was an awful warlord—he’d known it since before Darkley’s kicked him out for being a failure at evil. So it wasn’t like he would’ve been able to follow in his father’s footsteps anyway.

But the rest of Cole’s words… all his life, Lloyd had been defined by his father. His mother had left him at Darkley’s, where Lloyd’s parentage had been all that anyone cared about. His teachers had higher expectations for him, and were all the more disappointed when Lloyd couldn’t meet them. And when he and Cole asked around for someone who could take him in, it was his too-red eyes and too-sharp teeth and too-warlordy last name that made everyone close their doors in his face.

Lloyd huffed. Suuure, Cole could just run away and escape being what his father wanted, could become just another nameless kid wandering Ninjago, but Lloyd?

Lloyd grumbled as he grabbed at his sleeping bag to unfold it for the night. Nobody would see him as anything more than Lord Garmadon’s obnoxious son. Nobody but Cole, who Lloyd still wasn’t totally convinced didn’t hate him at least a little.

Lloyd Garmadon would always be tied to Lord Garmadon, but could never be anywhere half as great—or notorious. What Cole said was a nice sentiment, but it just wasn’t true. Not in the way Cole meant it.

Lloyd would never be out of his father’s shadow.

#whumptober2024 #no.15 #moment of clarity #lego ninjago #zaz writes #death mention #lloyd garmadon #cole ninjago #runaways au #hey!! it's that one piece i alluded to years ago!!!#but way different than i imagined it then!!!#mostly bc i never wrote down my original ideas for it and then. well #you will never guess what happened (i FORGOR)#but i like how this one went tbh #cole don't traumadump to the eight year old he doesn't need to hear all that #i was gonna have more commiseration over fathers in this one but then cole decided the conversation was over and went to sleep #(he is not actually asleep and won't be for a while)#i def could have had this one out earlier if i started it earlier (which like. yeah we were understaffed at work but like. it didn't take m #that long to bounce back after i got home) but. well.#i had fun and that's what matters 😌

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