#lloyd is the unimpressed brat.

[kindaasrikal]

“But i HATE waiting! It’s…BENEATH ME!”

It’s moments like this that you realise the evil ghost about to destroy the entire world is literally just an angsty child.

Teenager, yes, but also literally just a child guys it’s so funny

[razzle-zazzle]

900 Words; Runaways AU; Pre-Pilots

“You little brat.” Cole hissed, shoving his shirt back under the water to scrub at it more.

The goop didn’t seem very keen on coming out.

Lloyd shifted awkwardly across the stream, expression guilty.

Cole grumbled. “Where did you even get the ingredients for this?”

“I didn’t mean for it to hit you!” Lloyd interjected, as if that helped matters.

Cole glared across the stream. It must have been a particularly angry glare, because Lloyd winced and scooted back.

Cole returned to the mess of his shirt, glare softening.

The sound of flowing water was the only thing to break up the silence.

+=+=+=+=+

Lloyd jolted awake with a whine.

Nightmares… they weren’t unfamiliar to Lloyd. But unlike other children, who had parents to comfort them after a nightmare, Lloyd had no one.

From somewhere to Lloyd’s left, Cole rolled over in his sleep.

Maybe… maybe Lloyd did have someone.

Lloyd frowned. Or maybe not.

He wasn’t really sure what Cole counted as. The older boy tolerated Lloyd, which was better than just abandoning him. But he didn’t really like Lloyd very much. He was like the teachers at Darkley’s that way.

Except something about the way Cole acted was… different. Lloyd knew malice. He knew what it looked like when adults barely tolerated him.

And this… wasn’t that.

But what was it?

Lloyd frowned. The nightmare was but a memory now, fading quickly the longer he sat awake in his sleeping bag. But the night air was cold and the thought of falling asleep again unappealing.

And Cole was right there, asleep in his own sleeping bag. Cole, who for all that he seemed to hate Lloyd and was really only looking after him until they found someone who’d take Lloyd in for good, was still kind to Lloyd in his own way. Well, when Lloyd hadn’t pissed him off.

And Lloyd had done just that today, with his misaimed slime prank.

Maybe if Lloyd was careful, and didn’t wake Cole up…

He scooted closer, taking his sleeping bag with him. He’d just lay his own bag right next to Cole’s. That should be close enough to be comforting, but not so close that Cole would be annoyed.

Snuggling into his sleeping bag, Lloyd let himself slowly drift back into sleep.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole woke up to an eight year old pressed to his side.

Which probably shouldn’t have been such a surprise. But Cole had jolted at the unexpected weight at his side, panic bubbling his chest at the unfamiliar pressure.

And then he saw the kid curled up beside him, miraculously still asleep despite Cole’s panicked flailing.

The little shit actually looked pretty peaceful like that. A little trail of drool was escaping his mouth, and his chest rose and fell steadily with each breath.

It was almost like he wasn’t the part-human spawn of Lord Garmadon.

Cole frowned at that. He’d really only agreed to take care of Lloyd until he found someone who could actually take care of the kid. Being a fifteen-year-old runaway didn’t exactly give one a lot of resources.

Hell, nobody who actually cared about Cole even knew where he was. His father thought he was at MOSPA, and his mother…

Cole moved to brush at the kid’s hair, gently rousing the little pest. “C’mon, you.” He muttered. “Time to get up.”

Lloyd mumbled incoherently as Cole shook him awake. “Five more minutes.” he grumbled, snuggling into Cole’s side. The action might have even been cute if he hadn’t been causing so much trouble in the past week.

Cole stood up. “Nope. No more minutes. Time to get up.” With one hand, he pulled Lloyd out of his sleeping bag, receiving an indignant hiss for his efforts.

Cole watched Lloyd flail about angrily for a bit, then moved to his bag for something clean to wear. He didn’t have any patience for tantrums this early in the morning.

After about five minutes, give or take a Cole-didn’t-give-a-shit, Cole was dressed and Lloyd was grumpily rolling up his sleeping bag. Within moments, Cole had a small campfire going, ready to heat up some of the food they’d picked up at the last town.

“So why were you pressed up against me?” Cole hazarded, partly out of curiosity and partly to keep Lloyd out of trouble by engaging him in conversation.

Lloyd eyed the campfire with shifty eyes. He did not deign to respond.

Cole stared at Lloyd, unimpressed. “You know I’m just going to keep needling you about it, right?” His expression soured. “If this is part of some prank—”

“I had a nightmare.” Lloyd all but whispered, pulling his knees to his chest and staring into the fire.

“Oh.” Cole wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He continued to poke at the fire in silence.

There was a pause.

Lloyd looked up from the fire at Cole, expression hopeful. “You’re not mad, are you? ‘Cause if you’re mad—”

Cole blinked. “Why would I be mad?”

Lloyd blinked owlishly.

He didn’t have a response.

“If you have a nightmare,” Cole continued haltingly, completely unsure if he was doing anything right, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to tell me. I—” He looked at Lloyd, “I’m not very good at this, am I?”

Lloyd snickered. “Oh, you’re terrible.” He frowned. “But it’s a good terrible.”

Cole grinned. “You’re not so bad yourself, pest.”

“Wha—hey!”

[lloydskywalkers]

*sweats* yeAH i know the one gbdfjgh. It’s very much a Halloween-centered piece so I was incredibly sad tumblr decided to end its life the one time i actually hit a deadline i’d set for myself, but it’s been kind of just...marinating in my docs folder since then. I might post it formally on FFN eventually, but in the meantime, i’ll post it on here below the cut!

“Guys, you will never guess what’s running around Ninjago City."

Jay’s announcement is met with a distinct lack of reaction, which is pretty disappointing, because it’s the kind you drop for a dramatic pause and reaction. And he did — try to, at least.

However, instead of reacting properly, like anyone in their right minds would, his team is woefully un-reactive. Nya continues to snore into the couch, her face pressed against the couch pillow in a way that’s gonna leave a spectacular mark later, and Cole’s too busy referee-ing Lloyd and Kai, who are in the middle of their sixth round of Dance Dance Ninja Revolution, which Jay can’t really blame him for, because they chose a Rihanna song this round and they’re getting a little too into it.

“How did you get that bonus and I didn’t!”

“You gotta pop your hip on that last move, like this—"

“What, and crack my spine in half?”

“I mean, your bones are pretty fragile.”

“Fragile?!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so old.”

“I’ll crack your spine, you tiny brat—"

Zane is the only one to actually acknowledge him, even if it’s a slight cock of his head from where he’s video-chatting Pixal, making him the only one of these terrible people Jay actually likes right now, unless Kai manages to make a comeback and beat out Lloyd, in which case he’ll celebrate with him.

But it’s looking unlikely.

“Are you talking about the vampire rumors?” Zane asks.

Jay’s expression sours. Never mind, he retracts his appreciation of Zane now. Way to steal his thunder.

Kai snorts from where he’s waving his arms in a butchered kind of Macarena. “Seriously, Jay? Those rumors crop up every year. There’s no vampire.”

Jay glares at him, mentally switching his loyalties to Lloyd, as it looks like he’s going to wipe the floor with Kai anyways, because he’s just snatched that one difficult bonus Kai usually wins where you hair-flip like a diva.

“This is for real, though,” Jay argues. “It was reported on the police scanner. Someone’s running around biting people!”

“Maybe they’re just into that,” Nya yawns, burrowing her face further into the couch pillows. “Don’t be so judgmental, Jay.”

Jay colors, and Kai chokes. Lloyd gives a triumphant crow of victory, doubling his score at the last minute, leaving Kai solidly in the dust. Kai makes a sour face, collapsing on the couch and crossing his arms.

“You cheated.”

“Not my fault you got distracted,” Lloyd shrugs. He turns to Jay, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead and looking curious. “Wait, they’re really reporting that someone’s out there biting people?”

“Or something,” Jay says, quickly seizing on the attention. “Something bloodthirsty that goes around biting people’s necks, which obviously has to be a vampire.”

“It says here it steals their wallets, too,” Zane remarks, scrolling through the news article.

“A wallet-stealing vampire,” Jay amends.

The others look decidedly unimpressed, which is rather insulting and extremely disappointing. Geez, you fight one giant stone titan and a few mythical, apocalypse-bringing monsters and suddenly no one’s impressed by anything anymore.

“Sounds like petty crime, not our thing,” Kai yawns. “Besides, vampires don’t exist.”

Jay sputters. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaims. “They totally exist!”

Cole raises an eyebrow at him. “You know those vampire books are fiction, right?”

Jay presses his lips together tightly. “Are you telling me,” he says, stiffly. “That after everything — everything we’ve seen — which includes and is not limited to warriors made up of tiny snakes, a walking eldritch horror that’s actually another realm, and living skeletons — you don’t believe vampires can exist?”

“Well, yeah,” Kai says, simply. “Because those other things are real. Vampires aren’t.”

“You didn’t even think the Serpentine were real!” Jay accuses, because Kai’s opinion is clearly trash here, and he obviously should’ve started by attacking Cole, or Nya.

“Jay, chill,” Lloyd says, rolling his eyes. “Whatever it is, it’s not a vampire, unless someone stumbled off the set of a B-movie horror film. They don’t exist, Jay."

Jay opens his mouth, prepared to fire back, because of all the people to argue with him, Lloyd has no right at all, he’s a walking eldritch mutant himself — when Lloyd suddenly continues.

“It’s clearly a werewolf, if anything.”

Jay stops, his mouth half-open. He blinks. “Wait,” he narrows his eyes at him. “You don’t believe in vampires, but you’re game for werewolves?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd shrugs. “Werewolves make sense.”

“And vampires don’t?!”

Lloyd shrugs. “I mean, after Akita and the Formlings, you know?” He pauses, eyes widening as he contemplates something. “Wait. Is Akita technically a werewolf?”

Jay seizes the opportunity. “If she counts as one, then Oni count as vampires,” he argues.

Lloyd frowns at him. “What? No. That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Oh yeah?” Jay counters. “Then explain why they both have fangs. And glowing eyes. And drink blood.”

“I don’t drink blood!” Lloyd exclaims, indignantly. “And neither do Oni!”

“How would you know?” Jay challenges. “You’re just a tiny little quarter Oni.”

Lloyd glares at him. “A quarter Oni with teeth that can bite you—"

“Okay, okay!” Cole says hastily, shouldering between them. “No one’s biting anyone, geez. I’m taking this opportunity to declare it time for bed.”

“Aw, but I didn’t get to trash Kai yet,” Nya yawns, waving absently at the still-scrolling game on the television. Zane quickly turns it off.

“We can trash each other tomorrow, after six a.m. practice,” Cole huffs. Everyone groans in unison at the reminder.

“We should start getting skip days,” Kai grumbles into the pillow. “Like, mandated days we get to just sleep in instead.”

“You would use that every day,” Zane sighs, tugging him up. Jay watches as they slowly pack up, preparing to head off to bed.

Unbelievable.

“Wait, so we’re just gonna let this thing run loose?” he exclaims, waving his arms in the air. “Ignore our civic duty for sleep?”

Cole pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Jay, there’s one article about it, and these kinds of things crop up every year,” he sighs. “It’s just some Halloween pranksters using it as an excuse for petty crime. The police can handle it, okay?”

“But a vampire,” Jay bemoans. “What if it’s real?”

“Or werewolf,” Lloyd corrects. Jay would elbow him for that, but — aha. Lloyd has that spark in his eyes, the one that means trouble. Jay’s hooked at least one person then, even if it’s for the totally wrong reason.

“Whatever it is, according to reports, it will still be here tomorrow,” Zane says. “Halloween isn’t for another day, and it usually strikes then. If it means that much to you, we can look for it then.”

Jay squints skeptically at him. Kai and Cole are both wearing expressions that say they will not be helping with that particular excursion, and Nya’s already halfway into her room, clearly writing him off as well. Hmph.

“But by then, we won’t have a sighting to follow,” Lloyd says, hesitantly.

“Good,” Kai grumbles, apparently done with the conversation. “Then we can forget about make-believe monsters.”

Jay is pleased to find that he and Lloyd are still just as effective at giving people the stink-eye in perfect unison as they’ve always been.

“Drop it, guys,” Cole warns, his dark eyes tired. “You can argue over this in the morning. When we’re all dead tired at dawn practice.”

Jay scowls, but he nods. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.

However, he also knows when a cause isn’t lost. He trades looks with Lloyd from the corner of his eyes, and Lloyd gives him a tiny, imperceptible nod. Halfway into their bedroom, Kai suddenly turns on them.

“And you guys better not sneak out to hunt it down by yourselves,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “The police have it covered. There’s no such things as vampires or werewolves, but if I wake up at three a.m. tonight and find out you guys snuck out, you’re gonna wish one had already killed you.”

“Geez, overreact much?” Jay mutters.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “We’re not gonna sneak out just to chase down a few rumors, Kai,” he scoffs. “We’re not stupid.”

Kai eyes them both. Jay can almost see him mentally scrolling through Lloyd and Jay’s Best Hits, Screwing-Up Edition, in his brain, and he doesn’t like it. Like Kai has room to talk about dumb decisions.

Kai finally shakes his head, sighing as he heads for his bed. “I swear,” he mutters to himself. “If I have to fish you out of a river later…”

“You won’t!” Lloyd promises cheerfully. “Word of honor.”

**************

As it turns out, Lloyd’s word of honor is garbage. But so is Jay’s, so he’s not gonna judge.

“Okay, the reports said it was last sighted over in the east sector in the sewer tunnels, so I vote we start here,” Jay tells him in a hushed voice, as they plot their path from one of the city rooftops, the dim streetlights blinking down below. “There’s a bunch of bars and stuff around, so if I was looking to steal someone’s wallet by biting them, I’d go here. Down for a stakeout?”

“I’m game,” Lloyd says, slightly muffled through his mouth of—

Jay blinks at him incredulously. “Are you eating our garlic bread right now?”

Lloyd freezes, shifting guiltily and quickly swallowing. “No-o?”

“Lloyd!” Jay hisses. “We need that for the vampire!”

“Then you should’ve gotten actual garlic,” Lloyd hisses back. “I got hungry, and we’re carrying around garlic bread! Can you blame me?”

“Hmph.” Jay glares at him, then snatches the bag Lloyd had been hiding behind him. Lloyd makes a face.

“S’not like we need it anyways,” he mutters. “Garlic doesn’t work against werewolves.”

“It’s not a werewolf,” Jay retorts. “And even if it was, it’s not like we have any silver.” He frowns. “Wait, doesn’t silver work against vampires too? Maybe I should’ve gotten us some…”

“Got it covered,” Lloyd says, pulling a small ziplock bag from his sweatshirt pocket. They’ve opted to wear civilian clothes tonight, as one, they’re trying to be inconspicuous, and two, it’ll make it a lot more difficult for Kai to claim that they were out breaking their promise if they aren’t in very distinctive, undeniable gis.

“I snatched a pair of Nya’s earrings earlier,” Lloyd continues. “Sterling silver counts, right? ‘Cause they even have these little bits on the back you can stab people with.”

Jay blinks rapidly. “You snatched her—"

Well, actually, on second thought, it’s not the worst thing they’ve ever stolen from each other. And it’s definitely not the worst purpose for such a theft, either.

“Okay, nice, we got silver,” Jay says instead, trying not to think about what Nya’s reaction to finding out her earrings were used as lethal injections for a vampire is going to be.

“The better prepared, the lower the chances of dying horribly,” Lloyd says, cheerfully.

“Please don’t phrase it that way.”

“You literally said that exact same thing to me last week, on the Metallonia mission—"

“You must’ve had water in your ears,” Jay waves him off, knowing full well he did say that but having zero intent of admitting it. “Anyways, it’s just one vampire. We can handle this, easy.”

“Or one werewolf,” Lloyd says, pointedly.

Jay takes a very long breath, then lets it out. If it were Kai or Cole, maybe he’d pick the fight. But it’s Lloyd, and he’s risking Unholy Big Brother Wrath as it is.

“Fine,” he half-surrenders. “If it’s a werewolf, we can handle that too. But it’s not, because it’s clearly a vampire.”

“That’s what it wants you to think,” Lloyd grouses.

Jay rolls his eyes, shoving the rest of their supplies back in his ratty old backpack. He cranes his head over the edge of building rooftop, watching the evening crowds just beginning to flood into the bars.

“Now what?” Lloyd whispers, materializing next to him.

Jay, with his reflexes as sharp and well-honed as they are, does not nearly jump off the roof at Lloyd’s sudden appearance. He doesn’t squeak, either, the look Lloyd is giving him is just — Lloyd being a terrible gremlin.

“Now,” Jay clears his throat instead, taking on an air of expertise, because he is an expert. “We wait.”

**************

In the excitement, Jay has, tragically, forgotten how absolutely boring stakeouts are.

Really, he should’ve brought a board game or something.

“—somethin’ strange, in your neighborhood. Who you gonna call.”

Jay punches his hand in the air without enthusiasm where he lies on his back, yawning, “Ghostbusters.”

“Dun dun, dun dun, du-du-dun—" Lloyd continues humming the bridge, staring up at the sky where he’s got his arms beneath his head, sprawled out next to Jay.

“You know, I still swear I heard the ghosts playing this back at Styx,” Jay murmurs.

Lloyd’s humming halts, and he snorts. “Maybe they had a sense of humor.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Jay frowns. “So wait, this is your favorite holiday song? The song about ghosts? Really?”

Lloyd nods. “I ain’t afraid of no ghost,” he sings.

Jay makes a face at him, then shrugs. Well, he guesses he doesn’t have room to judge people’s coping mechanisms. He still deals with spiders by blowing the entire room up. “That’s one way to deal with it, I guess.”

“I like the irony,” Lloyd continues, with a lopsided grin. “Also, like, do any of us deal with our issues?”

“Ye—" Jay pauses, considering. Huh. He knows they’ve all been putting off therapy, but sometimes they, like…cry all over each other? At three in the morning? That counts, right?

He supposes that doesn’t quite equate.

“I stress-baked eight batches of brownies with Cole one night and ate half of them after the Oni thing?” he offers weakly.

Lloyd stuff a fist over his mouth, holding back a laugh. “I ate a whole container of frosting with Nya after the SOG thing.”

“That’s where it all went?” Jay snaps his head up, his eyes accusing. “Lloyd, that was our only cream cheese frosting! I was going to use that for a meltdown!”

“Oops,” Lloyd says, unapologetically. Jay digs his foot into his side, and Lloyd jerks away, giggling.

“You, I’d expect, but Nya…” Jay grumbles, processing this betrayal. “That’s like, cliché teenage heartbreak coping there.”

“Well, I mean,” Lloyd says, his smile suddenly painfully forced. “Kinda…was. A bit.”

Jay frowns. “Wha — oh.”

Oops. Too late, Jay realizes that he has accidentally stumbled into a mine zone. He should know better, seriously — Lloyd probably does not want to talk about teenage heartbreak right now. Or any time…soon, considering his last and only romantic excursion kind of…stabbed him in the back and got crushed by a building. Amongst other things.

“So!” Jay quickly says, trying to cut through the sudden awkwardness and turn the conversation to something better. “How is, uh, your life going, in that…area…?”

Never mind, Jay’s mind screeches at him. Abort, abort, this is going somewhere worse—! Maybe if he’s lucky the vampire will just come attack them now. That would probably go better.

Lloyd’s expression screws up, like Jay’s forced him to eat a lemon, or a ghost pepper, or like, swallow pure Venomari venom. “You mean my love life?” he spits, as if the word love is a personal insult.

“Not necessarily,” Jay says quickly. “I mean, no, but also…yes?”

“Nonexistent as usual, which is probably the best I can hope for,” Lloyd mutters, kicking at the ground.

Jay bites his cheek in sympathy. His poor baby brother. His voice finally stops cracking and he immediately decides to swear off love for life.

“Look,” Jay says tentatively, feeling like he should at least try to impart some wisdom on his kid brother. “Have you thought about like, I dunno, trying to meet new people? Just like, you know, being open to, uh, the idea of trusting someone…like that?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd grinds his teeth. “I’ve also thought about getting ‘love is a joke’ tattooed on my wrist as a nice reminder because that’s about how well it tends to go for me.”

Jay cringes. “Aha,” he breathes. That is — that is bad. Yikes, that’s…bad bad, maybe they should book a therapist. One of these days. Probably sooner than later, going by that statement.

Lloyd sighs, suddenly deflating. “I dunno, Jay. I just…maybe someday? I don’t really wanna think about it.” The edge of his mouth twists wistfully. “It’d be nice to just be a kid again, so I could stuff my face with candy instead.”

“Hey,” Jay says, elbowing him. “Who says you can’t stuff your face with candy now? We can totally hit up the store on the way home, you know. Zane can’t stop us if he’s not here.”

Lloyd cracks a grin, and Jay is infinitely pleased with himself. “After we catch the werewolf?” Lloyd asks.

Jay glares at him. “After we catch the vampire, and I prove all you heathens wrong,” he grinds out. Lloyd snickers.

“You’re fighting a losing—"

A piercing scream rings out from the streets below, and Lloyd and Jay jolt to their feet in well-experienced unison. Jay sweeps his eyes across the street below, his head whipping widely back and forth as he tries to spot—

“There!” Lloyd calls, already sliding down the fire escape. Jay follows his arm, and spots a disheveled man now crumpled in the street, other partygoers crowding around him. Lloyd’s hand is pointing just beyond, though, locked on the shadowed, dark figure fleeing into the alleyway.

Jay grins viciously at him. Lloyd grins back.

Normally, they’d have Zane at their backs, insisting on safety and such nonsense, but tonight it’s just Lloyd and Jay, who gold-medal at being an awful combination of adrenaline junkies. So by the time they’ve finished hurling themselves off the building and surfing down a couple of unfortunate clotheslines, they land in perfect synch just behind the fleeing figure. They immediately break into a sprint, following their quarry down the dark alleyways and gaining rapidly.

One of the few perks to being the smallest on the team — Jay and Lloyd are fast.

The figure jolts, finally realizing it’s being pursued, and suddenly takes a hard left. Jay yelps as he almost overbalances, his momentum nearly toppling him before Lloyd catches his arm, yanking him upright. They follow where the figure’s fled into an abandoned tunnel, one of the ones Jay recognizes leads to the sewer.

“Why in here?!” he gasps between breathes, as their feet splash through dirty rainwater the deeper they go. Ugh, he hates these tunnels — they’re too small and close and dark.

Lloyd doesn’t grace him with a reply, simply lifting his hand up in an eerie, makeshift green flashlight that lights up the tunnels around them.

“They went that way!” He hurls the bright globe of energy down the tunnel, throwing green shadows up all around, and illuminating their prey far ahead.

Darn it, Jay curses to himself. He forgot vampires are supposed to be fast, too. They need a way better plan then just running after it.

“Trap, we need a trap,” Jay pants. “What do they do in Scooby-Doo to catch the vampire?”

Lloyd glances at him incredulously as he runs beside him, his hair dyed a white-green in the eerie light where it bounces around his head. “Scooby-Doo?!” he exclaims. “There aren’t any vampires in Scooby-Doo!”

“Uh, yeah there are,” Jay argues, ducking under a rusted pipe. He almost has to pause to swipe his own hair out of the way before he gets blinded by falling curls. Mental note, book a haircut later. “Remember that movie with the bands and stuff?”

“Oh. Right,” Lloyd huffs, sliding through a puddle of water. “Forgot about that. Don’t they die or something?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you! Come up with a plan, you’re leader!”

“Not right now, I’m not!”

“You can’t do that — you’re our designated team captain, live up to your role!”

“Only in big crisis situations!”

“This is a crisis!”

“Fine! Here’s me leading — I order you to come up with a plan.”

“Oh for — what kind of Green Ninja even are you, huh?”

“Oh yeah, static for brai—agh!”

Their argument is cut short as the floor suddenly decides to take the day off, and drops neatly out from beneath their feet. Jay screams, Lloyd shrieking beside him as they both go tumbling down the sloping sewer tunnel, sliding through broken rock and upturned stone. The sharp slope finally evens out, leaving them to roll to a graceless stop in a heap of limbs and freezing rainwater.

“Ew,” Jay scowls, swiping at his hair as he kneels, supporting himself on one hand. “Sewers are the worst.”

“Ge’off me,” Lloyd wheezes, hitting his shoulder. Jay belatedly realizes that he’s got one elbow and a knee digging into Lloyd’s middle, and pulls back quickly.

“Whoops,” he says, cheerfully. “Hey, no broken bones, at least!”

Lloyd just makes a face, straightening his hoodie. He pushes himself to his feet, offering a hand to Jay and hauling him up. Jay brings a crackle of lightning up in his fingers, squinting around the tunnel they’ve fallen into. Lloyd finally remembers to pull out their actual flashlight, and shines it warily around the tunnel, lighting up the old, molding stone around them.

“D’you think they fell, too?” Lloyd questions, taking a hesitant step forward as he brandishes the flashlight like a weapon.

Jay shrugs. “Vampires aren’t normally clumsy,” he says, starting down the tunnel. “But who knows.”

Lloyd pauses for a moment, reluctant, then quickly hurries to catch up, falling into step beside him.

“Ninja aren’t normally clumsy either,” he huffs.

Jay snorts. “Have you seen us?”

Lloyd eyes him. “I control your training schedule, you know.”

“A heinous abuse of power which never should have been given to you,” Jay sniffs.

Lloyd’s eyes narrow. “I’ll stick you on stair sprints. Endless. Stair sprints.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jay retorts. “You’re too chicken to do that. Too soft.”

“I am not!” Lloyd says, offended. “I’ll make you run a gazillion stair sprints, watch me.”

“Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do when I start tearing up on you, Mr. Marshmallow Heart?”

“My heart is not a marshmallow,” Lloyd grinds out. “It’s—"

“More like cotton candy,” Jay nods. “‘Cause you hit it with one tear and it melts all over the place.”

“I will trip you face-first into sewer water,” Lloyd threatens. “And stop using candy metaphors. I’m starving, and you won’t let me eat the garlic bread.”

“That’s ‘cause we need it for the vampire!” Jay huffs.

“Werewolf.”

Jay throws his hands up.  “Do you need glasses or something? Because tell me, please, if that looked anything like a were—"

Jay cuts off abruptly as he and Lloyd freeze. Directly across from them, a mere ten feet away in the connecting tunnel, the hooded figure they’ve been chasing freezes as well. For a beat, the three stare at each other, the only sound the steady drip-drip of the sewer tunnels around them.

Then—

“It’s the vampire! Grab it!” Jay yells.

He and Lloyd dart forward just as the vampire makes to run, turning for the tunnel. Jay side-steps, using the wall to push himself up and flip neatly over the vampire’s head, landing in the tunnel before them and neatly cutting them off. “Gotcha,” he grins.

The vampire’s eyes widen from beneath their hood, and they backtrack, only to nearly run into Lloyd, who points the flashlight threateningly at them.

“Stand down,” he orders. Jay rolls his eyes. Oh, now he decides to sound like a leader.

The vampire makes a hissing noise of frustration, shaking their head. Lloyd goes to move forward, a familiar green glinting at the edges of his fingertips—

When the vampire suddenly snaps into action, rushing at Lloyd. Before Jay can blink, they snap a leg up to kick the flashlight from Lloyd’s grasp, snag him with their forearm, bare two glinting teeth, and—

Snap. Lloyd gasps sharply, his eyes going wide as the vampire bites right into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

Jay shrieks. “Lloy—!”

His scream cuts off, trailing into a gaping wheeze.

Jay is not entirely sure what — no, he’s not sure why what happen next happens. Maybe Lloyd panics. Maybe he forgets he’s a god-powered elemental with the capability of blasting people to heck with his hands for a second. Maybe both his Oni and dragon instincts decide to suddenly kick in and overpower the human. Or maybe he’s just so ticked at getting bit in the neck that his childish side comes out with a vengeance.

Either way, not even half a second after the vampire bites him, Lloyd snaps out his own too-sharp teeth and bites right back, firmly chomping down on the forearm pinning him in place.

The vampire gives a muffled scream, releasing Lloyd as they stumble backward, frantically clutching their arm. Jay takes this chance to send a bright bolt of lightning after them, just barely missing as they turn and flee, skittering away down the tunnels. Any other time Jay would give chase, but he’s got a slightly more pressing concern right now, and by that he means a big fat bad concern, because his brother is currently sporting a bleeding neck and trying to hack his own lung up.

“Oh god, the vampire bit you, Lloyd, the vampire bit you,” Jay babbles frantically, dancing around Lloyd as he doubles over, coughing and spitting frantically.

“—freaking — gross—"

“But —but then you bit the vampire,” Jay pauses, eyebrows furrowing. “So does that like — negate it?”

“—need hand sanitizer in m’a mouth—"

“Or does the vampire turn into an Oni?” Jay rubs his head. “Wait, wait no — you both swap, because you bit each other, so—"

“—tastes like battery acid—"

“Either way your neck is bleeding and why didn’t you just use your powers!” Jay shrieks at him.

“I panicked, okay?!” Lloyd cries in defense, wiping his mouth as he sticks his tongue out, clearly trying to rid himself of the taste. “Ugh — gimme that garlic bread, this is awful—"

“No way,” Jay snatches his bag away. “We definitely need it now.” His eyes narrow down on the two sluggishly bleeding marks on Lloyd’s neck, that he should really be patching up, actually, but first—

“Besides, garlic could be toxic for you right now! Since you might be turning into a…a vampire.”

Lloyd turns two smoldering, angry red eyes on him, and Jay swallows. Oh FSM, he’s already turning into a vampire, his eyes are red—

Oh wait, right, Lloyd’s eyes are red anyways.

“I am not turning into a vampire!” Lloyd hisses. He winces, clapping a hand over his neck. “I probably have like, rabies or something though,” he says, half-panicked.

“I don’t think vampires have rabies,” Jay tries to assure him, finally shaking himself into action, pulling his jacket off and pressing one of the sleeves against Lloyd’s bleeding neck. Lloyd jerks away on instinct, before letting Jay examine it.

“I can’t turn into a vampire,” Lloyd says, an edge of fear in his voice. “Kai’ll kill me if I turn into a vampire.”

“That’s your main concern?” Jay exclaims, swiping blood away — the bite doesn’t look too deep, and it seems like it won’t need stitches, or anything. He suddenly pauses, considering Lloyd’s words. “Okay, I will admit you have a valid point there,” he concedes.

Lloyd nods tightly, then makes a face before spitting again.

“So gross.”

Jay watches him, then speaks up hesitantly. “I mean…you have to admit that it’s definitely a vampire now, right, haha? Like, not to say I told you so, but—”

Lloyd turns his head, ever so slowly, his eyes narrowing into slits as he does.

“I will kill you.”

“Duly noted.”

**************

In a noble sacrifice of true brotherly love, Jay lets Lloyd get his weird mutant blood all over his hoodie as he uses it as a makeshift bandage.

“Rude,” Lloyd mutters, sounding wounded.

“Weird mutant blood is cool,” Jay assures him. “You Oni-dragon-hybrid, you.”

“I don’t even get any of the cool stuff, like shapeshifting or wings.”

“Yeah, that is a pretty lame tradeoff,” Jay admits. He pats his hoodie where it’s wrapped around Lloyd’s neck once more, nodding. “There. We’ll just…dump an entire bottle of sanitizer on it when we get home.”

“Can’t wait,” Lloyd sighs. His eyebrows furrow into determination. “After we catch this thing, though. It’s personal now.”

“Agreed,” Jay says. “But we definitely need a plan this time, ‘cause like, the biting thing worked, but it worst-case-scenario worked, you know? We need something a little less primitive, like, say, um…”

“Like this?”

Jay turns to Lloyd where he’s bent over one of the canal drains. He lifts the object he’s fished out, revealing a soaked but intact fishing net, likely abandoned from one of the boats.

A grin spreads across Jay’s face. “I have a plan now,” he says.

“Good,” Lloyd breathes in relief.

“You’re bait.”

Relief successfully obliterated. “Wait—"

**************

Jay’s wristwatch glows a dim 3:30 in the morning by the time their vampire finally takes the bait.

Said bait is very put out at being bait, granted, and is doing a frankly awful job at it, if anyone asked him, but he supposes that’s the best he can ask out of Lloyd when he’s been denying him their garlic bread the whole night.

“Oh no,” Lloyd intones dully, kicking through the tunnel water half-heartedly. “I’ve lost my way, whatever am I going to do with all this money in my wallet.”

“Boo,” Jay hisses at him, where he’s perched atop of a broken sewer pipe. Lloyd pauses his melodramatics to glare at him.

“I’d like to see you do better.”

“Oh no, you’re a much better damsel in distress than I am,” Jay assures him.

Lloyd looks furious. “Listen—"

He might’ve finished, but then the vampire jumps him from the shadows, and they both go tumbling as Lloyd’s voice turns to a shriek.

“Don’t die!” Jay hollers as he jumps down onto the vampire, startling a shriek out of them as he desperately tries to yank them off of Lloyd. “Roll, roll, get out of teeth range!”

“I’m trying!” Lloyd yelps, twisting himself free from the vampire’s grasp. The vampire makes to grab him, but Jay is already pouncing, tossing the net out so they run smack into it and go flailing to the floor, twisting themselves further and further into the rope webbing.

“Oh, thank FSM,” Lloyd mutters into the ground, where he’s yet to move. Jay ignores him, giving a cheer of triumph as he finishes knotting off the net.

“We got it!” he gasps, stepping back and surveying their struggling captive. “We caught the vampire!” He turns to Lloyd, grinning brightly in victory.

“Everyone else is gonna eat their words.” Lloyd nods, and Jay holds his hand out, slapping it against Lloyd’s before knocking their fists together.

Who’s stupid now, Kai? he thinks triumphantly.

Striding forward, he places his hands on his hips, smirking down at the vampire where it writhes against the net they’ve caught it in. He bends over, yanking their hood down.

“No use struggling. We got you now, you malevolent creature of the ni — ight, wait.” Jay blinks rapidly, staring at their quarry. “You’re….not a vampire?”

“No, you ssstupid human.”

Oh. Oh. Jay is incredibly, massively, thoroughly disappointed to realize that the figure on the ground glaring daggers at him, is not, in fact, a vampire. Not unless vampires come in Serpentine flavors.

“A Serpentine?” Lloyd blinks rapidly, looking as colossally disappointed as Jay is. “Aw man, we both lose, then.”

“A weird Serpentine,” Jay frowns, leaning closer. “This one’s got hair. Why do you have hair?”

The Serpentine — who is a she, from the looks of it — rolls her eyes. “I’m part human,” she hisses. “Ssso I do not look like other Ssserpentine. You humansss are just ssstupid enough to think I am a vampire.”

Jay opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Ah,” he says. He then brightens, glancing at Lloyd.  “Oh hey, you have that in common, then! Lloyd’s a freaky mutant anomaly of nature, just like you.”

“Hey!” Lloyd exclaims, looking offended. “A freaky mutant anomaly?”

“I mean it in love, Lloyd.”

“Would you let me out of thissss infuriating net.”

“Uh, yeah, no can do, pal,” Jay replies to the furious Serpentine. “We aren’t letting you off the hook just ‘cause you told us what you were. You’ve been running around and biting people in the neck and stealing their wallets.”

“You bit me,” Lloyd accuses, glaring hotly at her.

“You bit me back,” the Serpentine snarls at him.

“You bit me first!”

“Guys, guys, it’s not a contest,” Jay laughs, a little nervously. “Please. Calm your mutant anomaly selves.”

Lloyd looks as if he’s going to smack him — which he probably should, all honesty, Jay’s been pushing him — but the Serpentine just frowns.

“How issss he one?” she scoffs at Lloyd. “He looksss like a normal human. Maybe with rabiesss.”

Lloyd looks incredibly offended. “Like you can talk.” He shakes his head, sighing. “I’m…part Oni. And dragon. A bit.”

The Serpentine's mouth drops open, and the color leeches from her face. “O-Oni?” She stammers. She looks at the hastily bandaged wound on her arm in alarm. “Did you poissson me?”

“Wha—no!” Lloyd exclaims. “Oni aren’t poisonous!”

He pauses. So do Jay and the Serpentine, leaving the tunnel in silence for a beat.

“I don’t….think?” He turns to Jay, eyebrows furrowed in question.

Jay shrugs. He’s not the one with a bunch of inhuman relatives. “I mean, she hasn’t gone all, y’know — grey-skinned, purple-eyed, turned-to-stone, so?”

This does nothing whatsoever to quell the look of fear on the face of— Jay frowns. “Hey, what’s your name, by the way?”

“What, ssso you can tell the copsss?” their Serpentine hisses dully.

“Well, you’re a criminal, so,” Jay shrugs. “But look at it this way — I won’t call you Elvira Vampira, Terror of the Night, the whole way back instead.”

The Serpentine rolls her eyes, but she does look mildly threatened at being called Vampira for the rest of the evening.

“My name is Sssiri,” she finally admits, looking put out.

“Siri?” Lloyd blinks. “Like the phone voice?”

The Serpentine makes a face as if he’s called her the scum of the earth instead. “I hate that ssstupid company,” she hisses. “And their ssstupid phone voicesss. I hate them.”

“That’s nice,” Jay tells her. He exhales, placing his hands on his hips. He glances at Lloyd, who looks every bit as tired.

“Time to drag her to the police?”

“Time to drag her to the police,” Lloyd sighs, sounding disappointed, if not a bit vindictive.

**************

The cops are nice, at least, and the guy whose wallet got snatched thanks them profusely, so the night doesn’t end up being a total bust. Everyone looks pretty relieved that there isn’t an actual vampire running around, though, which Jay feels a little resentful at, because he’s losing a bet here.

“Hey, cheer up,” Lloyd tells him, elbowing him lightly. “At least no one ever has to know about it.”

“True,” Jay admits. He gives a sigh of melancholy, watching as the cops lead a put-out Siri into the car. He glances at Lloyd, then grins wickedly.

“Hey!” he calls quickly, waving at Siri. He slaps a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, shaking him. “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? Because this guy here is a hundred percent single and looking to ack—"

Jay’s idea is immediately torpedoed by Lloyd viciously throttling him in front of the entire crime unit.

“Jay what the heck!” he whisper-shrieks, sounding on the verge of an aneurism.

“I’m trying — to get you — back in the game—" Jay croaks out.

“With a neck-biting criminal?!”

“I wouldn’t be oppossssed,” Siri remarks, cocking her head as she studies Lloyd.

Lloyd goes an odd purple-scarlet color, then immediately turns on heel, marching away and looking not a little bit like his father storming off to destroy a village.

“He’ll call you!” Jay mouths at Siri, before hurrying after Lloyd. “Well, I’d call that a mild success, at least.”

“I am not calling her,” Lloyd grinds out, as he stomps down the street.

“Oh, obviously,” Jay says. He snickers. “Can you imagine Kai’s reaction, though? He’d blow five blood vessels at once.”

Lloyd remains stubbornly stoic, glaring forward. Jay winces. Oops, crossed a line. Still too sensitive. Maybe he can try again in like…a year.

“Hey, on the bright side,” Jay tries. “We can eat the rest of the garlic bread now?”

Lloyd’s pace slows. Jay holds out half of the buttery loaf they have left. Lloyd eyes him for a second, but Jay can see his resolve quickly dying. Lloyd finally snatches it, sighing.

“Tha’ is a bright side,” he says, through a mouthful.

“Garlic bread solves half y’er problems,” Jay nods through his own bite, pleased to find that it’s still good, even if cold.

They walk in silence for a minute, quietly chewing at the rest of the bread. Then Lloyd speaks up.

“Like….can you imagine being a real vampire though? And you couldn’t eat garlic bread?”

“Oh yeah, that would suck.”

“Seriously. I wonder if it’s maybe like, a lactose intolerance thing, where they can have a little bit before breaking into vampire hives or something?”

“Or maybe it’s like a peanut allergy thing, where their throats swell up and they have to use like, vampire Epipens.”

“If I was a vampire, I’d risk it either way.”

“Oh yeah, same. Totally worth it.”

“Totally.”

**************

The thing people tend to overlook about Jay is that, despite how loud he can be — and yeah, he’s admitting it, he can be a big enough person to recognize that he can get a bit worked-up sometimes — anyways, despite how everyone seems to think Jay has one default mode, he is, in fact, one of the best people on the team at sneaking. It’s one of the perks of being small — he’s learned to be light enough on his feet that even Zane can’t pick him up. And everyone expects him to come in all excited and loud anyways, so Jay’s got that advantage. No one expects him to be quiet.

And it is, of course, a trait he’s dutifully passed on to his little brother, who already has experience from sneaking around Darkley’s and lurking in Serpentine tombs, so by the time the alarm is an hour away from going off, Lloyd and Jay are safely back in bed, snoring quietly with the others, who are none the wiser.

Granted, Jay’s got the worst eye-bags ever in the morning, and Lloyd’s running a record for how long he can get around without actually opening his eyes — but Cole doesn’t say anything, and Zane isn’t looking at them suspiciously, so voila! They are off the hook.

Jay supposes he has the usual array of night terrors to thank for that. Always a good cover for sleeplessness, those.

He does have to drag Lloyd to the bathroom first so they can fix his gi collar high enough to hide the rather incriminating bite marks. Jay doesn’t even want to think about explaining those, because any plausible excuses he can come up with for them are just more likely to make Kai barbecue Jay on the spot.

“Good to see you this morning,” Cole tells him pointedly, as he joins the team around the breakfast table. Jay resists the urge to shoot him a gesture, and grabs for the coffee pot instead.

“Did you sleep alright?” Kai is asking Lloyd from across him, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. Jay can’t really blame him, seeing as Lloyd keeps falling asleep in his cereal, dark circles vivid beneath his eyes.

“Jus’ tired,” Lloyd yawns. “Didn’t sleep that well."

Kai pats him lightly on the shoulder, looking sympathetic. “Take a nap or something later,” he tells him. “For my sake.”

Lloyd nods, and Jay leans back in his seat, sipping contentedly at his coffee. As he said, no one suspects a thing. All’s well that ends well.

And then Zane turns the radio on.

“—the neck-biting thief was caught early this morning by the Ninjago City Police, with the aid of two accomplices—”

Jay goes pale.

“Huh, isn’t that what you guys were talking about last night?” Nya remarks.

Jay and Lloyd look at each other, their eyes wide. In a desperate grab for survival, Jay dives for the radio, fully prepared to hit it with a lightning bolt if it means turning it off before—

“—special thanks, of course, to the green and blue ninja, looking out for us as always.”

Jay finally smacks the radio off, plunging the kitchen into silence. There is a long, ominous pause of utter dread. Kai slowly turns to look at Lloyd.

“You went after them—"

“We didn’t!” Lloyd says quickly. “That’s not what we were doing!”

“Oh yeah?” Kai says, and uh oh, that’s a scary look. “You’d better have a heck of an excuse, then.”

“We do, we have a really good excuse,” Jay defends quickly. “We were out there for something way more important.”

“Oh?” Cole says, looking close to blowing a gasket. “And what was that, exactly?”

“Well,” Jay says, looking Kai dead in the eye. “We were trying to get Lloyd a hot date.”

Then, before anyone can react, Jay grabs a sputtering Lloyd by the hand and runs.

[darkhymns-fic]

Beginner’s Luck

Zelos takes his friends out for a night at the casino. Things go as well as you expect.

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel, Zelos Wilder, Genis Sage Rating: G Mirror Links: AO3, FF.net Notes: Written after playing TOS on steam - the casino minigames in paticular. My boyfriend was doing good as Lloyd with the blackjack game, and the image of Lloyd playing it was too fun. Also I'll make something nice for Zelos someday, promise.

“Now watch, my hunnies, as I clear this place out!”

It was unclear as to who Zelos was ultimately talking to. The only girl in the group was Colette, who was busy being entranced by the fancy displays in the casino. Lloyd was there too, also more enraptured than his country-living brain could handle. Genis, the only one unfortunate enough to fully pay attention to the Tethe’allan Chosen, just sighed.

“So you’re gonna hit on every girl to the point that they leave?”

Zelos glared at the kid with a sneer. “Ha, very funny, brat. But hey, I’m feeling pretty generous, so I’m gonna show you uncivilized barbarians a few tricks to racking up the cash here.”

Lloyd seemed to have finally heard Zelos’ voice. “Can you stop it with the barbarian crap?”

“This place is so bright!” Colette commented, lost in her own world. “But, um, are we allowed to be here? The sign said only people who are 21 can enter…”

“Angel cakes, you worry too much. With me around, you guys are basically getting a free pass!”

“Is Regal even okay with this?” Genis asked aloud.

He, of course, received no answer. With a flourish, Zelos tried to get his under-aged friends to explore the entirety of the casino. There were these giant machines to the right, where the middle of them would spin a fantastic array of colors and shapes. A few people kept pulling at a lever, holding plastic cups in their hands. To the left was a table, where a device called a ‘Roulette’ by Zelos was also spinning frantically to a random number. At each corner were the casino employees – young women dressed in a black leotard and bunny ears that Colette found to be so cute.

“So, these are games?” Lloyd asked, looking around as much as possible and barely understanding any of it.

“That’s right, my slow friend. Altamira has the best night life around. Guys and gals who don’t know what to do with their money and looking for some high thrills come here!” Zelos flicked back his red hair, posing for his oh so lucky companions. “I’m practically a shark around these parts, you know. Chips just fall into my lap like no problem!”

Colette blinked in wonder. “Wow, Zelos. You don’t seem to have sharp teeth like a shark though!”

“Nah, but he certainly has the face of one,” Genis replied with perfect understanding.

Zelos nearly stumbled. “Kid, don’t kill my groove.”

“What’s that?” Lloyd pointed to one table, where a blonde-haired employee was shuffling some cards, almost too quick for the eye to follow.

“Blackjack. Usually, that stuff’s too easy, but I guess I’ll show you how it works!”

“Oh! Is it like Go Fish?” Colette clapped her hands. “I love that game!”

“Nah, this is a bit more advanced than that…”

“Oh my! Chosen One!” The bunny employee smiled prettily. “Will you be playing a game with us today?”

Zelos, with a swagger in his step, leaned forward on the table. His smile was a practiced gleam. “Sure thing! I’m feeling pretty lucky. Know what I mean?”

“Haha, perhaps you truly are lucky,” the girl purred, then placed the cards on the table. “Only one way to find out!”

“So, you free tonight or-?”

“Please pick a card from the deck, sir!”

Genis snickered. “Still a charmer.”

Zelos chose to ignore the kid. “Got this in the bag.” He sat on the stool, cooly putting down one chip on the table. “Ready when you are, babe.”

Lloyd raised an eyebrow. “What? You’re just betting one chip?”

“Bud, these things cost like 500 Gald a chip. Cut me a break here.”

The dealer placed the chip in the center, then proceeded to cut the cards with deft precision. “I hope you will go easy on me, Chosen,” she said graciously.

“Well, can’t make any promises. Gotta look good in front of my loyal fans!”

Genis and Lloyd looked thoroughly unimpressed at that, but Colette seemed excited. She clapped her hands. “I know you can do it, Zelos!”

Another swift card shuffle, then the dealer placed the deck at an even distance from both her and Zelos. She dealt him a card, then she dealt herself one.

Lloyd was already getting bored and was looking back at the spinning machines. Genis was openly judging, and Colette was awestruck.

The dealer smiled at Zelos’ card. “Not a bad start!”

Zelos crossed his leg with confidence. “Yeah, I’m just a natural at this.”

“You only have a 4,” Genis uttered.

He was dealt another card, then the dealer dealt her own, but this one face-down. “What would you like to do now, Chosen?”

Genis was staring at the two cards. “Yeah, I don’t think-“

“Staying with my hand, baby!”

“What? You only have a sum of 12!” The boy was glaring at the Chosen openly. “The heck are you doing?”

“Look, brat, trust me. No matter what I do, I’m winning this thing.” Zelos shrugged, then laughed as he leaned back dangerously on his stool. “Ya think they would ever make the beautiful Chosen here lose?”

“Dealer wins! Player loses!”

“Wait, wha-” Zelos slipped his butt right off the stool and onto the floor, neatly hitting his forehead on the table edge. His two cards were no match for the perfect 21 sum of the dealer’s.

Hearing the guy’s cry of dismay, Lloyd turned back to him with full attention. “Oh, are you already done?”

The dealer took the single chip with a bright smile. “Thank you so much for playing! Would you like another game?”

Zelos rubbed a hand against the forming bruise, though there wasn’t much he could do to nurse his pride back. “Hey, uh, babe, whatever happened to the other girl that was here actually? I think her name was Sarah-”

“Oh, yes, she got fired!” The dealer nodded quite enthusiastically about it. “She kept giving freebies to the players!”

“Oh…” Zelos turned around. “Well, this place blows. Let’s go!”

“Yeah, guess your luck’s ran out, huh?”

“Kid, one more word out of you, and I swear that you’re getting a wedgie.”

Colette was still looking at the cards. “Hm, this actually looks a bit easier than Go Fish. Can I try?”

Lloyd was suddenly much more interested. “Hey, yeah, I wanna see!”

The dealer tilted her head questioningly. “Do you have a license? I’m sorry but only adults are allowed to play.”

“Oh, that’s right…” Colette then held up one of the same plastic cups other casino-goers were carrying, this one filled about half-way with chips. “Do you know who I can give this too, then?”

“…Colette, how did you get one of those?” Genis asked.

“I tripped over someone… and then suddenly I had this! I tried to find them, but they already left, I think.”

“Are you saying you just used your item thief move on somebody by accident?”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“Hey, that’s okay,” Lloyd reassured. “Also, we got free chips!”

“Lloyd!” Genis glared at him. “What about that whole ‘lying is the first step to the path of thievery’ thing you keep saying?”

“Oh! Uhh…” Lloyd clearly struggled with this, but then he smiled at Genis. “But Colette didn’t lie! So it’s okay!”

“Do you even seriously understand what you’re saying here?”

“Maybe there’s a lost and found somewhere?” Colette mused aloud.

The dealer eyed the chips and then with a gracious smile, beckoned Colette near. “Oh, well if you already have some chips, it would be unfair to not let you use them! Would you like to play, miss?”

Colette was smiling back, Lloyd was excited, and Zelos was still being grumpy about his loss. Genis felt like the only person here with any common sense. “Okay, so you won’t let Zelos win, but you’re okay with letting us play even though we’re not-”

“Please place your bets!”

“Oh! Okay!” Colette gingerly took out five chips and gave them to the dealer. “Um, is this fine?”

“That is perfect, miss!” She took the chips, then cut the cards in order to start the game.

“Colette, do you know how to play?” Genis asked her. He was sure that Zelos didn’t even explain to them how the game worked…

“Mm, I just have to reach 21, right? Or close to it before she does?” Colette nodded. “Yeah, it sounds really simple!”

Lloyd looked nervous. “Wait, so you have to count?”

Once Colette was dealt her two cards, she thought carefully on her next move. “Umm, another one, please!”

“Man, I don’t think I can follow this…”

“You are such a hick, bud! It’s just simple mathematics!”

“Yeah, didn’t you lose just now?”

“…Both you and Genis are being really unnecessarily cruel to me.”

“Wow, these Jack cards are so pretty!” Colette held one up to Genis. “They look like you and the Professor almost!”

Her hand was pretty good, actually. She was already at a value of 20. Zelos was impressed. “Whoa, angel. Think you might win this thing.”

“This is really exciting!” Colette waited patiently as the dealer drew a card, this one also having a nicely drawn picture on it. “Oh, that looks like me!”

“Um…” Genis eyed the dealer’s smile. “That’s not good, Colette. She just took away half of your bet.”

Lloyd was undeterred. “That’s okay! You can still win this!”

Colette opted to stay with her hand, and the dealer drew another card.

“Hey, Lloyd! That looks like you!” she commented happily.

Zelos sighed. “That’s…an instant blackjack.”

Lloyd looked confused. “For Colette?”

“No! For the dealer, dumbass!”

The dealer took away the remaining chips and cards. “Dealer wins! Thanks so much for playing! Would you like another game?”

“That was fun! It’s too bad I lost though…”

“I wanna try next!” Lloyd announced.

“Guys, we’ve already been here for a while,” Genis tried to reason.

“And we could just get our money back if we refund these chips,” Zelos added.

“These aren’t even our chips to begin with!”

But Lloyd and Colette seemed to ignore the argument behind them, both focused on the game. The dealer was only too happy to oblige. “Welcome, young man! You’re most welcome to try a game!”

Lloyd took a handful of chips from Colette’s cups and clumsily dumped it on the table. “I bet this much!”

Colette’s eyes widened. “Wow, is ten chips too much though?”

“Nah, I think I get how this game works!” Lloyd was already seated on the stool in the middle, excitedly gesturing for Colette to sit next to him. “If I lose, we can just switch off or something!”

“That is a very sound strategy, sir! One way to keep your luck fresh!” The dealer shuffled her cards to the eyes of excited country kids, while half-elf and noble playboy verbally duked it out.

“Why’d you even drag us out here? We already see you fail with women on a daily basis!”

“Ha! I’m not even going to take offense to that! I know you’re just jealous that I can talk to any woman on this planet and the next, while you’re still having trouble giving actual rocks to little rosebud.”

“You shut up! We’ll see how much you’re laughing when I tell Sheena what you’ve been-!”

“Player has 21! Player wins!”

Genis and Zelos stared at each other in silence before turning back to the blackjack table. There was Lloyd with a new pile of chips and Colette cheering on his success.

“You won, Lloyd! You’re so cool!”

“Man, that was really easy!” Lloyd scratched the back of his head, laughing.

“Very good! Would you like to play again?” the dealer offered. “Maybe you can win even more!”

With his now twenty-chip pile, Lloyd visibly pondered on that. “Hmm… what do you think, Colette?”

Colette’s feet swung from her stool, also thinking deeply. “It was really fun seeing you play. Maybe one more!”

Lloyd smiled. “Yeah, one more!” He turned back to the dealer. “I wanna play again!”

Genis was still behind them, boggling at how Lloyd had managed to win.

“Tch, just beginner’s luck,” Zelos said. “Next game, he’s gonna lose. Guaranteed!”

Honestly, Genis had just wanted to go to the theater tonight…

“Hit me!”

The dealer dealt Lloyd a card.

“Hit me!”

She dealt him another one.

“Umm… hit me!”

“Lloyd, are you even adding what you have?” Genis asked, entirely seriously, and still entirely confused.

“Yeah, yeah! No problem!” His friend barely paid him any attention, eyes on the cards.

“But you already have 19! You’re going to lose-“

“Instant blackjack!”

Genis stood there, stunned as Lloyd got that strange swordsman card from the deck, granting him the win.

Colette was clapping, eyes bright with wonder. “You’re winning a lot! You must be really lucky!”

“Perhaps the real luck is you, miss.” The dealer gave Lloyd his won chips, her smile on Colette. “Many of our customers like to have a beautiful lady next to them, believing they give them luck.”

“Hey, yeah! You’re the real lucky one, Colette!” said Lloyd, already accepting the narrative. He wrapped an arm around Colette’s shoulder, both of them laughing as he pushed forward another large set of chips. “Play again!”

Zelos had the same stunned expression as Genis, watching this country hick clean house right before his eyes. “I can’t believe what finally gets these two together is through gambling. Of all things.”

“Who cares about that?!” Genis shouted. “This is so stupid! This shouldn’t even be possible!”

“For once, brat, I’m agreeing with you.”

Both Lloyd and Colette leaned in close to the card deck. “Hit me!”

Third card dealt.

“Hit me!”

Fourth card dealt.

“Hit me!”

“A lucky ace!” The dealer smiled, though if one looked at it closely, it seemed strained. “Player wins! …Again!”

“Whoo!” Lloyd pumped his fists in the air, then grabbed Colette in a hug. “This is the best game!”

Genis was ready to tear his hair out by the roots.

“Lloyd never even passed math! How the heck is he winning at a game where you have to count correctly?”

It had been three hours and Lloyd showed no sign of stopping.

“Hit me!” Third card dealt. “Hit me!” Fourth card dealt. “Stay!”

“Dealer has busted. Player wins!”

Zelos and Genis were just sitting on the floor, watching morosely as the simple country boy from Iselia gathered more chips by the minute. Genis couldn’t even begin to fathom how much his friend had won. But at least Lloyd and Colette seemed happy about it.

“Sooo…” Zelos said, leaning his back against the wall of the casino. “Does Lloyd have a gambling problem now?”

Genis scowled. “If he does, then it’s your fault, you know.”

“How was I supposed to know that the guy who’s a fashion disaster is a natural cardshark?”

“You don’t even know what that means!”

“Hit me!” Lloyd was now standing up, fists clenched, eyes on the prize. “Hit me again!”

“Player wins!” the dealer announced, her throat sounding a little raw from all the won games. “Well, sir, you are certainly on a roll tonight.”

Genis watched in growing disappointment. “He’s… not gonna stop anytime soon, is he?”

Zelos shrugged. “Well, little miss angel there certainly ain’t helping.”

Sure enough, Colette was cheering Lloyd on, one hand placed delicately at his shoulder, sometimes interjecting when he should have another card or not. Apparently, her advice was sound, because the dealer pushed forward more chips to join their several small piles.

Genis needed to end this somehow. He stood up. “I’m getting my sister.”

Zelos’ eyes shifted around nervously. “Uh, sure you need to be bringing out the big guns already? I mean, a little gambling now and then never hurt anybody.”

“Zelos, is this the first time you’ve ever even met Lloyd? He doesn’t know the meaning of self-control!”

“So he blows away a couple hundred Gald. It’s a good learning experience- AHH!”

The redhead jumped to his feet, just barely dodging a stray fireball. Genis held out his kendama, his face leaving no room for excuses.

“And you’re coming along for insurance. No way I’m letting you off the hook for starting this whole thing.”

“The hell, kid!? You trying to burn this place down- WHOA!” Zelos dodged again. The fireball dissipated before it could hit the walls of the casino. The patrons never even noticed the brief flash of magic, too immersed in their games.

“You think a genius mage like me would let my magic get out of control? Now hurry up!”

Taking Zelos hostage, Genis marched them both to the front of the casino, hoping to find Raine at the theatre. That was his initial plan until…

“Guys! Glad you’re here.”

Sheena waved them down, standing by the slot machines, looking highly relieved.

“Oh, hey, Sheena. Have you seen my sister actually?” Genis asked, still keeping one eye on Zelos who kept looking for ways to escape.

Sheena gestured behind her. “Yeah, I was coming over to tell you…”

Raine was right there! She had her eyes on the slot machine, though Genis barely paid attention to that detail. “Sis! Hey!” He also didn’t pay attention to how she didn’t turn around to greet him. “Sis, I – we have a problem.”

Raine wasn’t listening. She calmly inserted another chip into the machine and pulled the lever. Blinking lights and colors emitted from its display. The presentation was dazzling, framing her otherwise calm and still figure.

“Um, sis?”

“Not now, Genis,” she finally spoke. Her voice was hovering between the space of teaching mode and sleepiness. “I’m in the zone.”

She inserted another chip, pulled the lever again, and watched the patterns align. Peppy music blared from the machine, though Raine showed little to no reaction to it.

Sheena, who was standing next to her, shrugged. “She’s been like this all night. Once she hit Paradise Mode, she just won’t stop.”

“Oh well,” Zelos interjected. “If the lovely Professor here can also see the beauty in such games, I don’t see why we should-”

Genis smacked the base of his kendama against the Chosen’s side.

“Ow! What the hell!?”

“I’m not dealing with two gambling addicts! She probably heard you were coming here with Lloyd and Colette and look what happened.”

Sheena narrowed her eyes. “Two gambling addicts?” She focused those fierce eyes on Zelos. “What did you do now?”

Zelos gave a long-suffering sigh, nursing his bruise. “Must a guy be punished just for having fun?”

Genis, ignoring the tirade from Sheena that was about to come, was already frantically trying to come up with another solution. Unfortunately, his sister was a lost cause. Who else could they turn to?

Then he knew. The best way to treat a condition was to always get right down to the source…

“Hit me!” Lloyd shouted. His booming voice had become part of the atmosphere in this place. A small crowd had gathered around the table, the other casino-goers curious as to how this young man in the garish red jacket was raking in such a large winning. The game required some skill, but luck played such a huge part. Surely his own would run out?

“Perhaps he’s counting cards,” one aristocrat lady whispered over to her husband. “That would be against the rules, would it not? Just as his choice of clothing should be.”

“It doesn’t seem as if he is doing so,” he whispered back. “Though maybe the girl with him might be able to see into the deck…”

But no one knew for sure, least of all Lloyd and Colette. They were both still riding high on this game of chance.

The dealer dealt the boy a card, then herself one, further busting her hand. “Well! Player wins again!”

“Lloyd, you’ve won so much!” Colette’s face was beaming, seeing all those pretty chips that were now nearly as high as Lloyd’s shoulder!

“Yeah, I know!” Lloyd couldn’t stop grinning, seeing no need to end the game. “Okay, another-!”

“Excuse me.”

The calm tone cut through the ruckus of yammering crowds easily, and even silenced Lloyd’s loud voice in less than a second.

Stumbling, both Lloyd and Colette turned around to find Regal standing behind them. Though he wore his prison clothes, he held his presence as well as his name implied. To his side was Genis and Zelos, the latter looking like he would rather be anywhere but here.

“Oh, hey, Regal!” Lloyd greeted happily. “I was just playing a game! It’s really fun!”

“Yeah! Lloyd is so good at it!” Colette joined in, as oblivious as Lloyd to their predicament. “Are you going to play, too?”

Regal didn’t answer them. His serious gaze was riveted to the blackjack dealer behind them, who was already sweating nervously.

“A-ah! Mr. Bryant! Um, what a pleasure to see you here!”

The President didn’t look so pleased himself. “Miss Taria. Must we go over the employee handbook regarding children participating in these games?”

With a seething Regal standing before him, and a teary-eyed dealer behind him, Lloyd looked back at his piles of chips.

“Wait, does that mean I don’t get to keep these?!”

Getting Raine to stop playing was a different matter entirely.

“Unfortunately, Genis, as she is an adult, there is not much I can do to make her stop.” Regal looked quite saddened by this, seeing the studious professor so entranced by the slot machine.

Sheena considered. “We could just, I dunno, blow that thing up.”

“I would like to avoid property damages if possible.”

“Sis, please!” Genis was tugging at Raine’s coat, which got him nowhere. “Are you listening to us? Do you even remember us?”

Regal said, in a deeply troubled voice, “My casino games have been known to be very addictive. I apologize.”

Lloyd was seated at a nearby table in what was basically a time-out, along with Colette. All their previous chips had been taken away, returned to the casino. “Still don’t see why I can’t play…”

“Hey, can’t have you young’uns ruin it for the rest of us, you know,” Zelos told him, as if the boy was desperate to hear his opinion.

Then, surreptitiously, the Chosen looked all around him. Their friends were still too busy pleading with Raine to hear what he would say next.

“Say, uh, Lloyd, what’s your secret?”

Lloyd had to take a moment. “What?”

“Like, you had some kind of lucky charm on you, right? There’s no way you actually did all that winning on your own. You carve a bunch of worthless crap, so you must have made one of those charms for yourself.”

“…Yeah, I’m done talking with you.”

Genis was still pleading with a zoned-out Raine. “I’ll let you cook anything you want for as long as you want! Just stop playing please!”

“Shh…” Raine hushed, patting her brother’s head absently, eyes still latched onto the slot machine’s spinning colors. “I’m gonna suck this place dry.”

Regal raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Lloyd, bud, my man. Just give me a hint to what you did, and I’ll leave you alone forever.”

“Seriously, can you go away already?”

Colette, seated next to Lloyd, looked at Zelos with some pity. “Sorry, Zelos. We’d help you out if we knew for sure!”

That’s when the playboy Chosen suddenly remembered the dealer’s words, like a fragile whisper in the wind…

“Many of our customers like to have a beautiful lady next to them…”

“It’s you!”

“Huh?”

Zelos grabbed Colette’s hand, dragging her to his side. “My sweet little angel~ How about you and I get to know each other over a round of blackjack?”

“…Huh?”

Zelos wasn’t really paying attention to her, and was thinking about how best to get back his reputation. Sure, he’s had some hot ladies next to him before, but Colette, being as pure as she was, must have been a special case.

Lloyd stood up at the first sign of Zelos’ intrusion. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Bud, you had your chance.”

Colette blinked owlishly. “I’m very confused…”

It was that moment that changed everything.

Genis, having watched his two closest friends get swallowed by the terrible disease that was gambling, and who was now watching that same sickness take over his only family in the world, felt himself changed. He knew that this would not be a one-time thing. Not with these kinds of addictions. He knew that both Lloyd and Colette would seek other ways to place bets, and that Raine might actually let them get away with it (or join in their efforts). All because Zelos had wanted to show off to everybody that he could barely play some dumb cards.

It was that moment that Genis made his decision.

He was going to freaking kill Zelos.

And now he heard Zelos trying to get them back into that vile pastime.

“This is your fault!”

Everyone in a near vicinity froze – even Raine, who had her hand on the lever, stopped to look at her brother. Her eyes became less cloudy, more focused. Lloyd forgot his anger for a moment to see his best friend’s face turn red with fury. Immediately, he guided Colette back to his side, and several meters away from Zelos. Both Sheena and Regal had the wisdom to stand a few feet back.

Only Zelos didn’t heed the warning.

“Look, brat, was I talking to you-”

His next words were swallowed by a vast amount of fire.

Presea was the only one to give Zelos any sympathy afterwards.

“It is very fortunate of you that Genis’ spell only made contact with most of your hair. If your skin had been targeted, you would have suffered from severe third-degree burns.”

She deftly applied the combover over his scalp, where half of his hair had been singed away.

“And your hair should return to its normal length within two to three months, depending on your diet and physical activity.”

The Chosen was more or less sober about the whole affair. “I have to pay for the damages to Regal’s casinos.”

“That is perfectly acceptable, given your responsibility for much of the situation.”

Zelos hoped his own luck would come back to him someday.

[lloydskywalkers]

So on the incredibly rare occasion that I do write romance, I have the ability to write one (1) single romance and that is all, and that’s Dumb Fools in Love. Which hopefully fits here, because it’s Glass Girl’s namesake day, so i gotta at least try for @speedythecat, it’s what she desERVES.

(happy valentines this is disgusting fluff anyways i love u speedy)

Lloyd likes the way construction paper sounds. It’s kind of therapeutic, the sound it makes as he drags the scissors through the middle. It’s even more satisfying when he uses them to start stabbing gaping holes through the paper, because he went and ruined the stupid heart shape again, and now he’s running out of pink and red construction paper that doesn’t look like he took a vicious katana to it and went crazy.

“Stupid scissors—”

He doesn’t know if Rain even likes pink or red that much, Lloyd reminds himself dismally, as he untangles his fingers from the scissors. Just that they’re thematically appropriate to the essence of the holiday, or whatever, and they apparently must’ve been the only two colors that existed when whoever came up with Valentine’s Day was around. He hasn’t even found actual purple in any of the little cards he’s seen, just some floral lavender.

Lloyd glances down to the pile of pink and red paper strewn across the table in front of him, then back to the instructions he’s printed out for himself. Then back to the paper.

Maybe he can just like, die instead.

Lloyd is about ninety percent sure that he can’t be the only person to ever look up “how to make Valentine’s Day cards” on the internet before, but it still feels like a crushing blow to his pride and an overall dumb move in general as he does.

But he’s only slightly desperate right now, and he really doesn’t want to reach fully desperate, so he’s willing to suck up his pride if it means not totally ruining his girlfriend’s hopes and dreams by giving her a sub-par and ultimately disappointing Valentine’s Day card that looks like he doesn’t even understand the holiday in the first place.

To be fair, though, he kinda doesn’t.

Like, Lloyd knows what Valentine’s Day is, obviously. He’s not an idiot. He’s just…never really participated in it…as a person. It seems like all the others have cute little stories of getting paper cut-outs and candy hearts in grade school (which he can get behind, if there’s candy), but Lloyd’s experience in grade school was general scorn toward anything love-related at all. Valentine’s Day was well out of the question. Lloyd didn’t even know it existed until he walked straight into a street stand that looked like red and pink had thrown up all over it, before being drowned in like, twenty-dozen bouquets of roses.

He’d been an awful brat of a child then, so at the time, he’d dealt with it by kicking the stand over and being totally grossed out. Now, however, he’s left wondering if those bouquets are worth the money, or if he should invest in the slightly bigger ones they sell over on the east side stands.

How the tables have turned, Lloyd sighs miserably to himself, struggling to peel another stubborn strip of glitter glue from his hand where it’s dried there, sparkling mockingly at him.  Finally digging the glue free, Lloyd brushes his hands off and glances down at his paper.

Go for handmade.

Well, that one’s easy, ‘cause there’s no way Lloyd’s physically bringing himself to walk into a store and buy Rain some cheesy card with a bunch of generic hearts on it. This, of course, leaves the problem that Lloyd now has to come up with the card, and the only thing that’s coming to mind are generic, cheesy hearts.

Hmm. Lloyd taps the edge of the table, humming beneath his breath. He can draw pretty well, but he’s not like, an artist. Not like Cole is, or anything. Lloyd is a lot better at cartoon characters and funny little caricatures of the others than he is, say, detailed roses or something.

Rain likes cats, right? he muses. He could draw a cat, and then maybe have it holding a heart, or something. That’d be kinda cute, maybe. And then he’d get to make some awful pun like “you’re paw-sitively purr-fect”—

Lloyd slams his head down on the table. Nope. This is why he’s not allowed to come up with the idea himself. He’s worse than all the awful grocery store cards put together.

Something in his nose tickles, and he sneezes, sending up sparkly dust all around him. Lloyd blinks, then bites back a moan. Belatedly, he realizes he’s just dunked his head in glitter dust.

It could’ve been the glue, he tries to comfort himself.

Figuring he’s already doomed, Lloyd makes peace with the fact that he’s just going to live the rest of his day resembling a blond disco ball, and lifts his head to return to task, squinting at what’s next on the list.

Make it personal.

Again, that one should be easy too, because it’s Rain. But what’s supposed to count as personal? Is it like, I-love-you personal, or here’s-a-reference-to-inside-joke-number-fifty-eight kind of personal? Should he do both? He and Rain have too many inside jokes, though, it’ll take him half the day to pick one, and he’s already running out of time. Rain’s supposed to be back at noon, and Lloyd does not have that kind of time to kill.

He drums his fingers against the table-top, staring at the outlined drawing of Rain his fingers have absently started sketching out, right next to his doodles of little cats and a mini-Overlord raging terror on the glitter glue scattered across the paper.

Lloyd frowns at the last one. Oops. Well, he can’t give her this now.

“Is that supposed to be the Overlord? You can’t give Rain that for Valentine’s Day.”

Lloyd jumps half a foot out of his chair and slams his knee into the table just so that his entire leg goes dead, his shriek of surprise strangling off as he chokes on the erupting cloud of glitter dust.

By the time he winds down coughing, wiping the reflexive tears from his eyes and glaring, Kai is just staring at him, mildly concerned and whole lot unimpressed.

“A little warning, please.”

“I’ve been standing here for five minutes, bud, it’s not my fault you’re in dreamland.” Kai glances down at the table-top of scattered construction paper and glitter dust, and his mouth trembles, like he’s holding back laughter. “Are you…trying to make a card, or mass-murdering our construction paper supply?”

Lloyd feels his cheeks go scarlet, and he sputters. “I’m not — no, I’m just—” He waves his hands in the air, wishing he could disappear. “Valentine’s Day,” he finally says, haplessly. “Rain. Card.”

“Ah,” Kai says, nodding. He eyes the butchered pile of paper. “It’s going…good, then?”

Lloyd buries his face in his hands, groaning. “I keep ruining it. I’ve never done Valentine’s Day before, Kai, this is a disaster. Rain’s gonna hate it.”

“Aw, don’t say that,” Kai says, sliding into the chair next to him, patting him on the shoulder. “Rain’ll be fine with…whatever…you end up making. It’s not that big a deal.” He laughs, rolling his eyes. “I mean, it’s not like she’s going to get horribly upset because you butchered her favorite holiday and dump you for some chump with better taste.”

Lloyd freezes dead, his eyes widening. He has not yet considered this option. What if he does ruin Rain’s entire holiday with his awful gift? What if, by completely disrespecting her last name’s namesake — thing — she does get horribly upset and runs off with like, Ariya to the desert or something, and—

Kai blinks, then his eyes go wide. “Lloyd, wait — no, it was a joke, Lloyd, don’t get that look on your face — Nya!”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

And that’s how Lloyd ends up cornered by his entire team at the kitchen table, covered in glitter dust and currently living out his worst life as they try to decide the best way for him not to totally sabotage his love life in one go.

“Honestly, I never really got Valentine’s Day,” Kai remarks. “I didn’t get the whole grade school experience as much, since we homeschooled for the most part. It’s just a lot of hearts and chocolate and flowers and stuff, right?”

“Um, it’s a lot more than that,” Jay rolls his eyes. “It was classroom warfare. Your like, entire life status was measured by how many Valentines you’d get. It was totally lame,” he scowls.

“I dunno, I always got a whole lot,” Cole muses. “I could never figure out why, though. I wasn’t super popular, or anything...”

They all stare at Cole for a beat, where he stands haloed beneath the kitchen lights in all his wavy-haired glory.

“Hopeless,” Jay sighs.

“This isn’t grade school, though,” Nya says. “This is Lloyd’s actual relationship, which we are helping him with, so let’s hear actual helpful stuff, please.”

“Again,” Kai shrugs. “Flowers. Chocolate. Hearts. Bam, you’re good.”

“For crying out loud,” Jay groans. “How do magazines keep labeling you the smooth one.”

“Hold on, he’s got a point with the chocolate part,” Cole points out.

“Of course, you would choose that part to focus on,” Zane sighs.

“Guys, enough,” Nya cuts over them. “I said helpful stuff, not the most generic ideas ever. I mean, chocolate’s nice, but Lloyd’ll probably eat it all before it gets to Rain anyways—”

“I would not!” Lloyd protests.

“—and the card’s gonna be the focal point, so hearts are covered.” Nya glances down the pile of butchered construction paper in front of Lloyd, and winces. “We’ll, uh, help you with that part. But first, let’s plan.” She tugs a half-torn piece of construction paper toward her, uncapping a marker. “What all does Rain like, for starters?”

“Well,” Lloyd pauses, thinking. “She does like flowers, and — no, no I am not going to ask Lief for help, no way, not a chance.”

“Just a suggestion!” Jay throws his hands up in defense. “He’s her friend, though, so he’d probably have some ideas, y’know?”

“So. Not. Worth it.”

“Okay, okay, geez.”

Nya rolls her eyes, but scribbles ‘flowers — not from Lief’ on the paper anyways. “Good, but that’s still pretty standard stuff. Anything else a little more creative? Something that really says Rain to you.”

“She likes rocks,” Lloyd nods.

The marker squeaks violently on the paper, and Nya makes a dying sound in the back of her throat. Kai breaks into snickering, and Jay whacks him on the shoulder, giggling.

“There you go, bud, perfect Valentine’s gift. Give her a rock.”

“No,” Nya says firmly, glaring at Jay. She then turns the glare on Lloyd, who immediately shrinks lower in his seat. “Rocks, Lloyd, really — okay. Okay, do you know anything else she likes? That’s not rocks?”

“Uh, she likes…glass?” Lloyd says, weakly. “And um, seashells. And tea, and — she really does like rocks, I’m serious! Like, cool ones—“

“You are not giving Rain a rock for Valentine’s Day!”

“A cool rock!”

“That doesn’t make it any more acceptable!”

“Ughhh.” Lloyd slides down in his chair with a dying moan, throwing his arms over his face. “You ruin everything. She likes those little paper cranes, I guess. And, uh…”

“You,” Zane reminds him. “She likes you. Therefore, she will most likely love anything you give her, since it’s from you.”

Normally, Lloyd would just scoff at that, but Zane’s voice is so sincere it actually helps, a little. Lloyd sits up in his seat a bit, his crossed arms loosening. “Well…”

“Yeah! So why don’t you just draw her a cat that says like, ‘you’re purr-fect’, or something?” Jay suggests. “That sounds like you.”

Lloyd slams his head against the table, once again accidentally dunking himself in glitter dust. He can’t bring himself to care this time, because the whole world apparently just knows him for terrible puns.

“Stop being so melodramatic, you’re going to remind her of her brother,” Nya clips. Lloyd chokes on his tongue, and dissolves into a fit of manic sputtering as Kai claps him on the back, encouraging him to breathe.

“—was just a joke, Lloyd, don’t take her seriously.”

“—time and place, Nya, time and place—!”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

It takes several disastrous attempts and more than a few marker wars — Kai in particular is sporting some spectacular pink sharpie marks along the side of his face, and Lloyd’s got streaking red marks across his forearms as the price for protecting his own face — but Lloyd end up with one brightly-colored, cursive-lettered Valentine’s card for Rain.

He’s feeling pretty confident in it, actually. It says everything he wants it to say, while looking pretty but dignified, and it’s only got one cat on it, so he’s — he’s pretty sure Rain will like it. A lot more than any of his other disastrous attempts, he assures himself. Now all he’s gotta do is grab the flowers Nya made him promise to get, and according to both Wikihow and his family, he’ll have the perfect Valentine. Armed with that knowledge, Lloyd strides confidently for the kitchen table to grab an envelope.

Only to freeze dead when he comes face-to-face with Rain, who’s bent over studying said disastrous attempts from earlier, that he’s left out in full view on the kitchen table like a complete moron.

Rain’s currently got one of his first attempts in her hands, her finger tracing the little design he’d drawn. Her hair’s down right now, all silvery and smooth and falling over her face, so he can’t see her expression.

Lloyd is highly considering running for the hills by like, hurling himself out the kitchen window, when Rain turns around, the end her nose still red from the outside cold, freckles standing out more than usual on her cheeks. Lloyd freezes in place.

She holds up one of the ruined cards. “Are all these...for me?”

Lloyd’s soul makes the executively wise decision to exit his body right then.

“They’re — I — no, they’re for, uh—”

Lloyd’s mind backfires. Shoot, he can’t say they’re for someone else, they’ve got ‘I love you’ and other sappy stuff all over them, what’s he supposed to do—

“They’re, uh, for my grandmother.”

Rain raises an eyebrow. “Your grandmother…named Rain,” she says slowly, reading the name that’s brightly plastered everywhere.

“Her name’s Rain too,” Lloyd tries, weakly.

Rain raises her other eyebrow. She wordlessly holds up one of the cards, pointing to where “Rain Allira Valentine�� is highlighted. Lloyd mentally makes a note to murder Kai later as her finger slides down to the “Mr. Rain Valentine” right below, her lips trembling as she tries to hold back a snicker.

“Um.” At least she’s laughing, Lloyd tells himself. She hasn't run off to the desert yet. “I have a better one for you, I swear. Those are just — really, really bad first attempts, which you were never supposed to see, ever.”

Please forget they ever existed, is on the tip of his tongue, but Rain’s expressions softens, her eyes fond as she looks from the cards to him.

“I don’t know, these are…kinda sweet,” she admits, her cheeks going a bit pink.

“Oh,” Lloyd says, his own face heating. “That’s! That’s good, I guess. I mean, this new one’s — it’s a whole lot better, though, and uh…” He frantically rubs the back of his head, trying to get his brain back online and working properly again. Unfortunately, the action sends a tiny shower of sparkles raining from his hand, and Lloyd remembers in horror that he never got that glitter dust out.

Rain smirks, biting back a laugh. “Hold on,” she says, stepping in close. “You’ve got some — here.”

She pushes a hand through his hair, her fingers gently tangling through the thick blond strands before pulling away, leaving her fingers stained in glitter dust. She gives a tiny snicker, then brushes at his hair with her other hand, neatly sweeping a shower of glitter dust from it before carefully tousling his hair back in place.

“There,” she says. “Now you don’t look as much like a disco ball.”

“Maybe I wanted to look like a disco ball,” Lloyd says, petulantly. “Lloyd Disco Ball Garmadon, that’s me.”

“Then I’d have to make you another Valentine��s card,” Rain says, and Lloyd finally spots the envelope she’s been keeping behind her back. “Because I definitely messed up your middle name, if that’s the case.”

Lloyd blinks rapidly. “Wait, you got me one?”

Rain freezes, looking unsure. “Um…yes? That’s kind of…the point, right? You give Valentine’s to people you lo—like—um, love.”

Lloyd’s definitely red now. “I-I probably wouldn’t know,” he finally stammers. “Darkley’s wasn’t too big on Valentine’s.”

Lloyd immediately wants to hit himself, because Rain’s here being sweet and talking about love, and he’s bringing up Darkley’s like a motor-mouthed moron. And now Rain looks sad, and is it too late for Lloyd to pitch himself out the window—?

“Well, lucky for you, I know all about it,” Rain suddenly says, firmly. “You’ll just have to spend the day with me, so I can give you the run-down.”

“That I can do,” Lloyd grins brightly in relief.

“It’s a date, then,” Rain beams, before her smile hitches in laughter. “And you, um, you have more glitter. On your cheek.”

Lloyd wipes quickly at his face. “Oh, come on — did I get it?”

“No, now you’re just — okay, stop, I’ll get it, hold on.”

Rain steps nearer again, brushing her thumb across his cheek once, then again. “There,” she nods satisfied. She doesn’t move back, though, standing close enough that Lloyd can count her freckles, and see every shade of teal in her eyes. There’s a hint of a smile left on her face, and Lloyd swallows. This would probably be like, the perfect time to—

“For FSM’s sake, kiss her, you moron, she’s totally set you up for it—”

Kai’s voice cuts off in a strangled choking sound as Nya throttles him while both Rain and Lloyd go scarlet, and Lloyd makes another mental note to murder Kai a second time later.

“Wanna go out?” Lloyd suggests hastily, his face flaming. “The candy’s probably not gonna be on sale yet, but I bet we can get someone to cut us a deal.”

“Yes,” Rain nods fervently. “Let’s — out. Go out. Of here, sounds good.”

“Great,” Lloyd says, then snatches both their jackets from the hook before fleeing, Rain trailing behind him as they sprint past the others, stifling laughter as Lloyd desperately avoids making eye contact with anyone. Rain’s muffling giggles too, though, and Lloyd can’t help breathing out a laugh as he flings open the doors tumbling out into the chilly February weather.

“So, I have a question,” he says, as their footsteps fall into pace down the street. “What do you think of like, rocks as a present?”

“Hm, I don’t know. Is it like, a cool rock?”

“I mean, hypothetically? Yeah, a super cool rock.”

“Well, if it’s super cool. Then that’d be a good one, I guess.”

“I knew it—!”