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lloydskywalkers · 5 years ago

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skywalker syndrome, pt. II

*sweats nervously* this is...so long. This is so, so long and it’s not even the last part, but i just have a loT OF FEELINGS about it okay T-T

Anyways! here is the continuation of my extensively angsty, s9-Lloyd-loses-an-arm-AU that i posted about a year ago, now featuring four whole over-concerned siblings who are finally back in the same realm.

The funny thing about life as a ninja extraordinaire, is that there are certain things that you can totally suppress, and never deal with ever. Like, they might still be there, lurking in the dark corners of your mind like vaguely threatening mold or something, and sure, one of these days they could blossom into actual issues, and then threaten to destabilize whatever’s left of your emotional stability, but you can at least ignore them for a while. And if you’re Lloyd —which he is — you can get really good at ignoring them, to the point where you almost forget they’re there half the time. Bam, problems solved.

But as it turns out, unfortunately, there are also some things that you just can’t.

One of those, even more unfortunately, happens to be losing, say, an entire limb. And to top off the entire stack of unfortunateness — the unfortunatetest — most unfortunate? — part about the whole thing: Lloyd currently happens to fall into the second category.

(Will always fall into the second category, he doesn’t know why he’s saying currently, it’s not like his arm is gonna grow back—)

Anyways. Lloyd has finally met an issue that he can’t ignore, and that’s…another issue, he guesses. Oh, he’s tried, but walking off a lost arm is just a lot more difficult than ignoring trauma, or a broken rib or something.

“But I mean, it also could have been a leg, and then I’d have real trouble walking it off, haha, get it?”

“There are so many concerning things in that essay’s worth of words you just threw at me, I don’t even know where to start,” Nya sighs.

“Aw, c’mon,” Lloyd nudges her shoulder with his fist from where he sits in the battle wagon next to her, metal fingers clanking oddly against her shoulder armor. “That wasn’t even my worst pun.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to, and you know it,” Nya side-eyes him. Then, after a beat— “And that one was low-hanging fruit. I know you can do better.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll come up with something better when we’re not running on zero hours of sleep,” Lloyd yawns, propping his elbows up on the dashboard and leaning against them, scrubbing at his eyes. He flinches back at the cold of his metal hand, and scowls at it instead, as if its inability to create heat like a normal limb is a personal insult. He lets it fall limp against the dashboard with a dull clank, laying his normal, warm human arm on top, and using that as a pillow.

He then squeezes his eyes shut, enjoying the brief relief from the thundering headache he’s had the last few days, before screwing them back open. Nya is staring at him fully now, face pinched in concern. Lloyd thinks that’s rather unfair, because her eyes are every bit as bloodshot as his, and he’s definitely caught her wincing from a headache of her own like, six times today already.

“Lloyd.”

“What.”

Nya sighs again — she’s been doing that a lot lately — and finally takes her hands off the wheel, leaning back in her seat, pulling her leg up and wrapping her arm around her knee. “You can’t do that.”

“Do what?” Lloyd says petulantly, knowing full well what she’s talking about.

Nya knows too, because she gives him a look. “Ignore that kind of stuff,” she says, waving a hand absently in the air. “Trauma, and whatnot.”

“I’m not ignoring my trauma,” Lloyd rolls his eyes, because they’ve had this conversation a minimum of sixty times now, so he’s ready for it. “I’m just waiting until I have a thing of ice cream big enough to cry it all out over.”

He’s probably going to need an entire ice cream parlor at this point, he muses—

“I’m serious, Lloyd.”

“Uh-huh,” he mutters, burying his face in his arms. “Sure. You wanna talk about Nadakhan while we’re at it, then?”

Nya sucks in a breath, and Lloyd feels a hot flash of guilt for having brought it up.

But like — it’s true. If he’s gotta sort out his issues, then Nya needs to, as well. Fair’s fair, and she needs someone looking out for her. Even if Lloyd’s been doing a pretty terrible job of it lately.

“Sorry,” he murmurs anyways.

Nya presses her lips together, then shakes her head. Her eyes are far away, staring out across the ruined city through the windshield. “No,” she says, her voice a whisper. “No, you’re right. I — you’re right.”

“Well, I’m sorry for that, too.”

Because he wishes he wasn’t right. He’d love to be wrong, about this. He’d love it if they were all just fine, and the guys were back and cracking jokes with them, and Nya had never died after being nearly forced into some twisted marriage, and the city wasn’t crumbling down around them because his sort-of-ex brought back his dead dad, and Lloyd still had both whole arms, and they were all drinking like, strawberry lemonade on the beach right now or something.

“We’re a real mess, huh,” Nya says, and there’s a sniffled edge in her voice that Lloyd doesn’t like.

Lloyd bites his lip, then reaches out, uncurling her fingers from where they’ve gone white around the steering wheel, and squeezing her hand lightly instead. “Kai would say we’re hot messes, though.”

Nya snorts, squeezing his hand back, ad Lloyd feels a bubble of warmth at her smile. They sit there in silence for a bit, watching the smokey clouds drift past above, waiting on Pixal or Skylor to finally call in on the radio, and tell them they can move out already.

Lloyd’s just considering trying for another nap, when Nya speaks up again.

“Really through. Lloyd, we gotta talk it all out eventually. You don’t wanna end up all emotionally suppressed, like your uncle, do you?”

Lloyd sputters, then glares at her. “You take that back. I’m not gonna end up like Uncle Wu.”

“Oh yeah? Just wait, any day now you’re gonna walk in on us, with a big straw hat on, and say ‘terribly sorry, my loyal ninja, but there’s something I haven’t told you’—“

Lloyd throws his mask at her, even as he breaks into snickers at the deep-toned voice she’s using. “I am not!”

“—you’ll have a beard, too,” Nya continues, grinning. “Like, ten feet long—“

“Ten, please, have you seen my hair? I bet I can do twenty—“

“Oh yeah, Rapunzel? What’cha gonna do then, trip over it into your enemies?”

“No, I’m — I’m gonna strangle them with it.”

That mental image is the final straw for Nya, and she doubles over in loud cackling, stuffing her fist against her mouth to try and silence her laughter. Lloyd’s already dissolved into giggles, but his attempt to keep them quiet sounds a whole lot more like rheumatic wheezing, which only makes them laugh harder.

“Please,” Nya breathes, when they’ve finally wound down. “Never grow a beard.”

“I dunno,” Lloyd says, stroking his chin, in what he hopes looks like an accurate impression of Uncle Wu. “I think I got the face for it—”

“You don’t.”

“Ouch, right in the heart.”

“It’s for your own good, bud.”

“We’ll see what Kai says.”

“He’s gonna agree with me, and you know it.”

“Hmph.”

“…and Lloyd?”

“Hm?”

“ ‘Unfortunatetest’ isn’t a word.”

“You aren’t a word.”

The other funny thing about life, though, is that no matter how miserable it gets, it’s always bearable with Nya.

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

Which is probably why Lloyd doesn’t really start to crack until Nya goes down.

“Oh no — oh no, Nya, you’re okay, you’re fine, you’re all good, just — you’re okay—”

“I’m fine, stop telling me what I already know,” Nya gets out, through gritted teeth against the pain. She couldn’t be more clearly not fine, but between the two of them, they seem to believe that if they can say it’s fine enough, it’ll all work out. It’ll be just fine. Nya just had a car fall on her and probably shattered her arm but it’s — it’s fine, she hasn’t lost it yet, and if it comes down to it, she can have his other arm, because Nya is not losing a limb today.

Between him and Dareth, they finally manage to get the car — the entire car, Lloyd is losing the battle to panic by the second — off Nya, and Lloyd’s right back at her side to worry more. Nya shrugs him off, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain as she struggles to rise, wobbling in place.

But she still pushes herself up, on her feet, and picks up her spear with her good arm, and Lloyd decides for like, the tenth time this week, that Nya is the strongest person he knows. Right up there with Skylor, who’s actually insane, as it turns out, holding off an entire Colossi with his father’s stolen power — Skylor’s incredible.

But Skylor’s also currently unconscious in the battle wagon, and now Nya’s in severe pain and down an arm, and she doesn’t have a handy — aha —replacement like Lloyd does. And Pixal’s in Kryptarium so all that’s left of the ninja is Lloyd, and Dareth looking to him for answers, and Lloyd should be used to this, he’s leader, he could practically write the book on being in desperate, all-consuming-panic situations like this, but—

Harumi’s dead. Lloyd’s powers are gone, and people are dying now. Because of his dad, because of this stupid vengeance spree, because of him.

Lloyd’s eyes smart painfully, and he tightens his grip on Nya’s good arm, wondering, not for the first time, how in the world it had all come to this.

“We need to — we need to—” Nya cuts off, biting the inside of her cheek. Her composure falters, and Lloyd can see the same hopeless sort of exhaustion in her eyes, the weeks of running on fumes taking their toll. They need to get moving, they need to regroup, but there’s no one to regroup with. It’s just them, Lloyd and Nya, and they might be able to function independently better than anyone else but they’re also chronic younger siblings. The reminder that they’re not supposed to be alone is driven so deeply into their heads that it’s not even annoying anymore.

Not when they’re so very, very alone now.

“We can fall back,” Lloyd suggests, his voice wavering. “We can—” He swallows. Hide feels cowardly, but even he knows it’d be useless to suggest, anyways. They’ve run out of hiding places from Garmadon. He’d find them, Lloyd knows he will. His father is a lot of things right now, and relentless is one of the stronger ones.

“We can move, at least,” Dareth says, panic tinging his voice. “Those Sons of Garmadon will be on us any minute.”

It’s not Dareth’s fault, but it certainly feels a lot like karma as, at that very second, the sound of motorcycles echoes down the street, mixed with the familiar cries of the Sons of Garmadon.

They all go tense. Nya and Lloyd look at each other, and Lloyd wonders if the expression of fear on her face is mirrored on his, or if he looks closer to terror.

Either way, he’s frozen in place, and that’s bad, because they’re all frozen now. Maybe this is it. Maybe they’ve finally run out of the will to keep going. Maybe this is for the better. At least it’s not his father.

But then he remembers that they’ll probably take him to his father anyways, and if Lloyd didn’t have terror on his face before, he does now.

The loud roars of the motorcycles are circling now, and if Lloyd’s right, they’ve got barely a minute left before they’re surrounded. That’s not enough time to make it out. Not with everyone, not with the condition they’re in.

And Lloyd’s not about to leave anyone behind.

Nya sucks in a shaky breath, her face white from pain as her bad arm shifts. “Lloyd, do you — do you have any ideas?”

Lloyd stares up at the smoke rising above the city, his city, and the skin that meets his prosthetic throbs. His head does too, exhaustion mixed with pain mixed with dying adrenaline leaving him sick.

You’ve failed, Green Ninja. Your father won this round.

Like he does every round, Lloyd thinks bitterly. Morro had it right, back in Styx. He doesn’t deserve to be the Green Ninja. Not when he can’t win the fights that matter.

But he’s still Lloyd. He’s still Nya’s little brother, and even Garmadon can’t take that from him if he tried. So he shakes his head, croaking out, “Sorry, I’m stumped.”

It takes Nya a minute longer than usual, her eyes confused in her pale and dirt-stained face, but then—

She slumps against him, wheezing out what could be a laugh. “If that was an another arm pun, I swear—”

Lloyd tries to keep his face passively blank, but he can’t help the breathless huff of laughter that escapes. It very quickly threatens to turn into hyperventilating, so he cuts it off quickly. They all step closer to each other, forming a tight circle as the motorcycles roar into view, and Lloyd’s knuckles turn white with the fist he’s making.

He almost says I’m sorry, because it feels like what he should say right now, him and his whole sorry bloodline and everything that’s led to this. But Nya would probably hit him if he did that, and get that sad look on her face, so he doesn’t.

“This would be a really good time for the guys to get back,” Lloyd finally says instead, a bit hollowly. Nya gives him a weak smile that threatens to crack into despair as they’re surrounded, the blinding headlights from the Sons of Garmadon pinning them in place.

But maybe, just maybe, karma is on their side after all. Because, not half a second after Lloyd’s said those words, the sky opens up and roaring out from the bright portal, filthy and battered but alive, come the super late — like so late, for real, Lloyd’s gonna give them heck for this — rest of their family.

Lloyd doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see his big brother’s ridiculous, spiky head of hair in his whole entire life.

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

In the euphoria of reuniting with the guys and his uncle, Lloyd kind of forgets that he’s lost an arm for a second. He also forgets that the last time the guys saw him, he might have been a half-dead mess on Mystaké’s kitchen table, but he also had both arms. So it’s probably not — not the best of welcome back surprises he could’ve offered.

But the thing is, Lloyd’s at least been thinking his arm looked fine now. Like, it’s obviously not his arm arm anymore, but it’s a whole lot better than the ugly empty space that was there. And Nya put the dragon on and everything, so he can look sick when he either defeats his father or dies horribly.

But for all that it looks fine, the guys’ faces still go ten shades of white when they finally catch sight of it.

Lloyd thinks that’s rather unfair, considering they just burst out of the sky on a bunch of dragons after having been presumed dead, but he’s not gonna pick now to argue with them.

“Wha — how — what — is that—” Kai, predictably, is the first to go to pieces, his eyes wide as dinner plates in his dirt-stained face, his fingers hovering shakily over the metal arm as if touching it will make it real.

“Your arm,” Jay informs him blankly, gaping at him. “It’s gone?”

Oh, Lloyd’s aware.

“Yeah, it’s uh, it’s gone,” he explains, quickly. Then, because he needs to see a different expression on their faces than horrified shock— “It’s — it’s pretty disarming, haha, right?”

Kai looks like he’s either going to combust on the spot or physically smack him.

In the end, he makes this heartbreaking kind of “oh Lloyd” at him before throwing his arms around him, then immediately jumping to the absolute worst conclusions possible.

“Was it your dad — it was your dad, right? Was it Harumi? It must’ve been your dad, oh I’ll kill him, I’ll slaughter him for you Lloyd, I swear to FSM—”

This is followed by a general meltdown of “if only I’d been here,” which spirals into self-blame pretty fast, which Lloyd neither wants nor needs to happen right now (nor thinks is accurate, what could any of them have done anyways), so he throws Nya a desperate look.

“Look, stuff happened, okay?” she says, shouldering her way between Lloyd and the guys, wincing as her wrapped arm pulls. “The city’s on fire and Lloyd’s down an arm, we dealt with it. Right now we need to focus, because Garmadon and the Colossi are still out there, so please tell me those dragons are going to help us out.”

Again, Nya is one of Lloyd’s favorite people in the entire universe.

This distracts them enough that they momentarily get off Lloyd’s back, though he has a feeling he’s either gonna have to answer two hundred questions later or find a really good hiding spot.

But that’s a problem for a different Lloyd to worry about, and this one needs to focus on his father. And the fact that his uncle now looks ten times younger and is, much more importantly, about to let him ride on his dragon.

Lloyd’s halfway to the dragon when Cole catches him. He doesn’t grab him or anything, just touches his arm gently, his eyes horribly sad. “Lloyd,” he murmurs.

Something in Lloyd’s chest twists. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. How is he supposed to pretend he’s not sad when they’ve all got this look on their faces?

“It’s fine,” he blusters, with a smile that is only half-forced. Fortunately, he has this part rehearsed by now. “It’s not a big deal — it doesn’t even hurt or anything. Don’t worry about it.”

Cole looks like he has every single intention of worrying about it, because Cole is Cole, but Lloyd can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed because he’s missed them so, so much. Sure, he’s mad at himself for giving them something to immediately worry about the second they even get back to the realm, but Lloyd’s too happy to see them at all to mind that much.

Plus, there’s like, a fifty-fifty chance his father is about to kill him pretty soon anyways, so he tries to enjoy it while he can. He’s sure Uncle Wu will do his best, but unless he’s got something big up his sleeve — besides the, uh, age thing — Lloyd isn’t so sure.

Winning against Garmadon isn’t something he’s ever been particularly good at, even with both arms.

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

Lloyd wins this round.

Somehow, somehow — bruised and bloodied and down an entire arm — he wins this one. It’s almost surreal, standing on top of Borg Tower, the wind whipping eerily around them as he stares down at his father, kneeling on the ground before him. His father, defeated. Lloyd didn’t have to break this time, he didn’t even have to bend. He defeated his father, without his powers, without any cursed venom fueling him, and without his arm.

Take that, you stupid snake.

Well — technically. Technically, he did defeat his father with his arm, because there are going to be some spectacular bruises on Garmadon where he got sucker-punched by a solid metal fist in the morning. But still.

Lloyd didn’t have to kill him. Not this time.

The relief that hits him is so dizzyingly crushing, he almost throws up.

But oh, it figures. The one time Lloyd can end things with his dad alive, and it’s the time his dad hates him.

But Lloyd knows a little too well that things could’ve ended a lot worse. He’s got his family back, his whole family, Kai and Jay and Cole and Zane and the people that have stuck through the worst of it with him, and that’s more than enough for Lloyd to be happy. He doesn’t die, they win back the city, and Kai only cries about it like three times, so honestly, it’s almost the best he could hope for. The worst part is out of the way now, so really — it should be smooth sailing from here. The guys are upset about the arm thing, obviously, but it’s not really that big a deal. Lloyd just has to convince them of that, which shouldn’t be a problem.

A piece of cake, compared to the last few weeks. Besides, he’s already been through the worst of it.

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

As is his luck, Lloyd finds himself eating his words half a week later.

“First Master—“

Lloyd chokes back a curse, stumbling out from bed as quietly as he can, teeth clacking as he clenches them together to keep from making any more noise. The guys don’t move, still solidly asleep, but that’s going to change real quick if Lloyd starts cursing up a storm over his stupid arm.

He bumps into the doorway on the way out and almost screams, biting his lip hard instead and fleeing down the hallway. Ow, ow, ow. He must’ve rolled his shoulder into his sword sometime in the night, because that’s what it feels like, a horrible kind of deep ache that leaves him wanting to sever what’s left of his limb as he stumbles into the kitchen. At least then, there would be less to hurt.

Lloyd passes by the several large windows in the apartment they’ve been staying in, and his heart immediately sinks. It’s dark outside, but the city lights illuminate the growing clouds above, and he can spot the flash of lightning in the distance. If the slight buzz in his blood at the oncoming storm wasn’t enough to clue him in, the building pressure in the atmosphere certainly is.

And he used to like rain, Lloyd thinks miserably, leaning his head briefly against the wall.

There’s a distant roll of thunder, and something in his arm — his stump, there is no arm there to hurt, that should help — throbs, deep and aching. Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut, fighting back the budding tears of pain, and remembers his mission. They went shopping earlier, and he knows for a fact there’s pain killers somewhere in the kitchen. The promise of relief from the pain is enough to spur him from where he’s slumped against the wall, and he drags his feet down the rest of the hall, finally ducking into the kitchen, which is quiet and empty in the late-night hours.

Great. Now he’s just gotta find the stuff, and he can — well, he can try to go back to sleep. Maybe he’ll just watch cartoons instead, or stare blankly into oblivion, or something. His shoulder throbs again, and Lloyd forces himself to focus, blowing his breathe out. Right. Cole was the last one to take the meds, ‘cause he’s got all those nasty healing cuts. So if he was the one to put the bottle away last, that means it’s probably…on the…top shelf…

Lloyd carefully, quietly drowns the whine of despair in the back of his throat. He’d eat dirt before he admits he’s a shortie, but compared to Cole, everyone is, and Cole has a terrible habit of leaving all the meds on the highest shelf or cabinet possible when he’s done, which are always the ones Lloyd can’t reach. And right now, with the first drops of rain just starting to fleck on the windows, moving his arms anywhere above mid-waist sounds like death.

But sitting here with his arm on fire sounds even worse, so death it is.

Biting the bullet, Lloyd toes the handle on the drawer closest to the floor, bracing his good arm on the counter, and pushes himself up. He wobbles precariously, but he catches himself quickly, breathing out a huff of relief. Now comes the hard part. Gritting his teeth in determination, Lloyd swings his prosthetic arm up as quickly as he can, knocking against the uppermost cabinet and—

Lloyd’s vision blurs out as the pain in his shoulder decides to go nuclear, and he slips back down with a strangled choking sound, clutching the edge of his shoulder and desperately willing himself not to blast through the wall with his powers in agonized frustration. When the pain finally ebbs enough for him to think again, he slumps over the counter, bracing his good shoulder against it and letting the bad one hang loosely, where the pain pulses in and out like a heartbeat.

Like death, he thinks dully, hissing his breath out through his teeth. Right. Okay. He’ll just — take a nap on the counter then, until he can work himself back up to the cabinet.

Lloyd cracks an eye open, glaring hotly at the cabinet out of reach. Maybe if he like…rattles it? With his…leg, or something? He can do a pretty impressive high kick, if he tries. Anything not to move his stupid shoulders, because the pain radiating from the prosthetic port is — oh boy, it’s something.

…with hindsight, he should’ve been prepared for this. But still.

Lloyd kind of just….crashes on the counter, for as long as he can, but the pain finally gets bad enough that he’s willing to risk more for any kind of relief. Gritting his teeth again — his jaw is beginning to hurt — he squares his shoulders, instantly regretting the action as little lines of agony flare in his right side in tune with the thunder from outside. At that point, Lloyd’s brain finally decides it’s done with the situation on the whole, and he’s backing up to make a running jump for the cabinet, when—

“Who’s — stand down, I’ll blast you!”

Lloyd aborts his charge just in time to duck the bolt of lightning that flashes through the room with a yelp, sliding to the floor as his momentum sends him crashing into the lower drawers. His vision whites out for a good minute as he whacks his bad shoulder on the metal edge of a handle, and he might make some kind of muffled scream that sounds enough like him for Jay to recognize, because by the time it clears, Jay is staring at him with wide eyes, his face pale but clearly no longer registering Lloyd as a threat.

Still, just in case— “Don’t shoot,” Lloyd croaks out. “I’m unarmed.”

Jay’s expression spasms, but the crackle of electricity silences, and the blue light extinguishes as he lowers his hands. Lloyd notes the way they’re trembling, despite how hard Jay’s trying to stop it. “Lloyd, seriously,” he mutters, but he’s at Lloyd’s side in a beat, hovering anxiously.

“Are — are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd says, trying not to wince as he shoulder twinges. “I, uh, sorry if I scared you. I was just getting some water.”

Jay looks up to the cabinets, then back to Lloyd, where he’s yet to rise from the floor. He needs to get up already, because he’s got like, an image to keep here, but he’s also too scared that his stump of a limb is going to attempt murder again, and that’s keeping him pretty solidly rooted to the floor.

“You’re on the floor, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd shoots back, making a face. “Maybe I like it here.”

“Uh-huh.” Jay’s expression is narrow-eyed in skepticism, and Lloyd shrinks in on himself a bit. Still, though — the expression is better to see than the stark terror that had been written over Jay’s face when he’d walked in. The remnants of it are still there, if fading quick — Jay doesn’t look quite like Jay yet, bright and happy and quick on the uptake.

He looks tired, dark circles like bruises beneath his eyes, and his movements are slower than usual, as if perpetually lagging a step behind. Like he’s being dragged down by something, and it’s taking an extra amount of strength to fight it off that’d usually go toward bad jokes.

Which is sad, because Lloyd could really go for a bad joke right now. The atmosphere’s been heavy enough around their little apartment after everything, and it’s only worse now, with Lloyd curled up on the floor and Jay watching his arm with hollow eyes. And that’s not even talking about the actual atmosphere, which is currently trying to make Lloyd consider knocking himself out to escape the pain. Bad Jay jokes would be nice. Lloyd misses having something to laugh about.

But you know what, that’s quitter talk. Lloyd can make bad jokes, too.

“You uh, you wanna give me an arm up, here?” he says, grinning weakly at Jay. “Could really use a hand, if you get what I’m saying.”

“You — you’re terrible,” Jay sputters, but he cracks the edge of a smile, and Lloyd silently congratulates himself on that small victory.

“But you love me.”

It comes out too much of a question, and Lloyd bites his tongue. But Jay’s eyes soften as he pulls him up, and he’s gentle as he does it, so it barely hurts.

“Yeah, short stuff,” he says. “I do.”

And that’s — Lloyd swallows. That’s too much emotion for him to deal with in Jay’s voice right now, even if it is the kind of reassurance he clings to with a desperation these days.

“Short stuff,” he scowls instead. “You’re one to talk.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jay grins, a bit weaker than his usual one. “I grew a half an inch in the First Realm, bud. I’ve got you now.”

“No way,” Lloyd counters, squinting at him. “You look shorter, if anything. I’ve got you now.”

“I do not.” It’s Jay’s turn to scowl. “And please, the only height you’ve gained is your hair. Fluffing it up all crazy does not count.”

Lloyd snorts, despite himself. “My hair, you should see-ee—”

His voice abruptly pitches higher, strangling off mid-sentence as a fresh wave of bright pain sears through his shoulder, throbbing with the increased thudding of rain against the window. Lloyd almost bites his tongue in half as he dips forward, words momentarily lost as his teeth grind together.

Jay’s at his side in an instant. “It’s the storm, isn’t it,” he says, his eyes bright in concern. “Your arm is hurting extra.”

“T-technically, it’s not,” Lloyd breathes out. Words are back online again, that’s good. He exhales, shuddering. “S’just what’s left of it.”

Jay worries his lip, and then realization sparks in his eyes. “You were going for the top cabinet,” he says, slowly. Then— “Cole had the pain meds last, didn't he.”

Lloyd nods, his good hand clutching and un-clutching at his shoulder. Jay makes a sympathetic noise in his throat, then moves for the cabinet himself. He uses the same drawer handle as a step-up that Lloyd did, but he doesn’t wobble, snatching the bottle from the top shelf and stepping down neatly. Thunder shakes through the apartment, and Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut tight, barely conscious of the sound of running water. When he opens them, Jay is in front of him again, a glass of water and four larger pills held out.

“You look like you could use the extra,” he says, in explanation.

Lloyd nods gratefully, shoving the pills in his mouth before grabbing the glass and draining it. “Thanks,” he croaks out.

Jay nods, his eyes lingering on Lloyd’s prosthetic. He opens his mouth once, then closes it. Then opens it again, inhaling like he’s gonna say something, then shuts it again. Then again—

“Jay, spit it out.”

“CanIlookatit,” Jay blurts out, red immediately rising in his cheeks.

Lloyd blinks rapidly, trying to parse out the jumble of words. “Can you — huh?”

“Look at it,” Jay repeats, shifting awkwardly. “Your, uh, your arm? The prosthetic one, I mean. Just ‘cause I think I can help it! Help you, I think I can help you, ‘cause you kinda look like it’s hurting you, which would make sense, with the storm, and I might be able to — to help, if that’s not like, a problem with you — if it is that’s fine! I totally get it, I mean if my arm had got — was lost, I’d be—”

“J-Jay, slow — Jay,” Lloyd tries vainly to cut over him once, before succeeding the second time. Lloyd gives him a weak smile, then flops his arm out. He immediately regrets the action, as it feels like he’s shoved a knife or two into his arm. “It’s — ow — fine. You can look at it.”

“Oh! Cool,” Jay says, deflating in relief. “Ah, thanks for trusting me?”

Lloyd waves him off, with his good arm his time. “There’s like, six people left I trust, but I trust ‘em with my life. You’re one of them.”

“Oh,” Jay repeats, but he sounds sad this time. A little too understanding, too, and Lloyd wonders if their entire team isn’t suffering similar issues with putting faith in people, after everything.

“Here,” Jay says firmly, as if shaking that sobering thought off. He points to the couch, eyeing Lloyd as he winces with the thunder again. “Wanna lie down, so I can look at it?”

“Sure,” Lloyd mutters, flopping down on the couch (and immediately regretting the action, again, you’d think he’d learn by now), lying with his head at the left end so he can spread his prosthetic out on the edge of the cushioned footrest. Jay steps over, carefully sitting down on the floor by him, hands hovering hesitantly over the arm.

…his arm. His arm, just a bit different.

“I like the design here,” Jay says quietly, his fingers ghosting over the engraving Nya had put on one quieter day during the Resistance. It’s in the shape of a dragon, like the one of his other spare prosthetic, but this one is a little subtler, almost sketched into the metal. “It’s cool.”

“Nya did it,” Lloyd says. “And you can touch it, if you want.”

“Oh — yeah,” Jay gives a nervous laugh. “Um. Could I, like, see where it…attaches?”

Lloyd blinks, glancing to where the sleeves of his too-big (Kai’s) t-shirt fall well over where the metal arm meets his stump. He swallows, then nods, carefully rolling back the fabric until his shoulder’s exposed. “That good?”

Jay, to his credit, just gives a quiet, hissing little intake of breath, and nods. And it really is to his credit, because while Pixal did all she could, the surgery was — well, Lloyd was in and out during it, but it was haphazard at best, and the scarring it left all up to his shoulder is…

It’s not pretty. And Lloyd’s been thinking he doesn’t mind, but now that he actually has someone looking at it, he’s realizing he might.

Time to invest in a lot more long sleeves, he thinks dully.

Jay’s frozen for a second, and Lloyd bites his lip, trying not to squirm as he stares openly at the scarring. Then he shakes his head, bright eyes gaining the steady determination Lloyd knows, and sets to work, fingers carefully skimming one of the compartment edges.

“Lemme know if anything hurts.”

Lloyd just nods. It’s weird, at first, feeling but not really feeling as Jay fiddles with the arm. He still doesn’t like not being able to truly feel stuff with it, but right now, with the pulsing pain still lingering from the storm outside, he’s almost glad for it. To the point where the idea of feeling anything else in what’s left of his poor arm almost has him flinching away from Jay.

Jay’s fingers are careful, though, and he finally clicks something in the arm into place that shifts the whole thing, the throbbing pressure on a few particular nerves in Lloyd’s arm letting up some, and his shoulders go loose in relief, the tight rigidness he’s been holding them in easing off.

“Oh,” he exhales in relief, a bit shakily as he sits up. “That’s better. That — thank you. That’s a lot better.”

Jay beams, clearly pleased with himself. “No problem, green machine,” he says. “Just glad I can help. I mean, Nya did a great job with it, but the uh — the wires right here, you see? Those can get twisted up if you move around a lot, and that’ll create pressure on the nerves, and then you’ve got the gears here, and…”

Lloyd quickly loses track of Jay’s technical babble, nodding along like he understands instead. His brother’s stream of chatter is a nice sound against the rain in the background, warm and familiar, and Lloyd slowly relaxes further, his shoulders crying in relief as they lose their tension. The meds are kicking in now too, and the pain’s ebbed into something a lot easier to manage. Enough for Lloyd to start feeling guilty, anyways.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” he finally says, after Jay’s wound down from his explanation, ducking his head.

Jay waves him off. “I was already up, anyways,” he shrugs. “The storm woke me. They…they do that a lot.”

Lightning flashes, as if to echo his statement, and Lloyd notices the twitch that runs through Jay this time, how he almost seems to vibrate with the thunder that follows.

“Does it bother you?” he asks, a little hesitantly. “The storm?”

It feels like a silly question, because Jay can practically create storms, he thrives in them, Lloyd’s seem him straight-up catch a lightning bolt in his hand and chuck it like a baseball without breaking a sweat. But even though Lloyd's definitely not the ninja of lightning, it is the element he found easiest to wield, when he’d had all four, and he remembers the way the connection would buzz at him.

Jay bites his lip, his fingers tapping some vaguely familiar beat on the table as he fidgets, turning the question over in his head.

“It’s — I feel it under my skin, you know?” he finally says, bouncing a bit in agitation. “I mean, it’s not bad, but I can — I can hear the lightning outside, like it’s talking to me, and I can’t sleep through it. I normally can, I mean, but — but normally it’s not this loud.”

He trails off, frustrated as he glares out the window. “Everything’s been loud since the First Realm,” he mutters, beneath his breath.

“Oh,” Lloyd says, quietly. The guys have told them about the First Realm, sure, but like — not really. The same way Lloyd and Nya have told them about the Resistance, but not really. An outline of the events, sure. A plot-like summary of important details, as detached as possible, sure. But all the worst parts, the crushing grief and despair and the awful headaches from too little sleep and too many held-back tears, all that? No way.

So while Lloyd knows they went through heck in the First Realm, he doesn’t really know. But with the way Jay’s eyes are shadowed, the dark circles beneath them and the way he looks like he’s years older as he stares at the storm out the window right now, he can guess.

“That must’ve been tough,” he finally says, hesitantly. “Being stranded, and everything. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I was cut off from everything like that.”

Jay blows his breath out, his fingers trembling slightly where they lace together. “It wasn’t fun,” he says, a little distantly. “I…I was kind of a mess, at first. I think I scared the guys. I wish I hadn’t, but it was just — it was a lot.”

Lloyd’s not sure what to say to that, so he just squeezes Jay’s forearm with his good hand, and hopes it’s worth something.

Jay shakes his head, almost as if to himself, “I just wish I’d been useful.”

Lloyd blinks at that, taken aback — and pretty concerned — at the gaping insecurity in Jay’s voice. He knows Jay struggles with that, but to see it this raw—

It hurts.

“Kai says you helped build that dragon,” he says, nudging Jay’s side with his knee. “That plan wouldn’t have worked without you. And you drew up the actual plans, and kept them secret and everything. And I saw you, when you guys came back. You saved us, right in the nick of time. It sounded like you were pretty crucial to the whole thing, to me.”

Jay gives a huff of laughter, but some of the tension in his expression eases. “You’re just saying that. Buttering me up,” he shakes his head, knocking his fist against Lloyd’s leg.

“Am not,” Lloyd says, kneeing him back. “I’m serious. You’re all kinds of useful. I’d totally hire you, if you came to me with your ninja resumé.”

“Yeah, ‘cause job number one on it would be ‘green ninja babysitter’. You’d have no choice."

Lloyd sputters. “I’m not — you guys don’t babysit me.”

“I have a whole lot of evidence that proves otherwise,” Jay says, grinning. “The others would agree, too.”

“This is mutiny,” Lloyd glares. “The nerve, the utter disrespect. I’m your leader.”

Jay actually laughs at that, further proving Lloyd’s point that his whole team is awful. But it’s a genuine laugh, one that softens the lines of stress at the corners of Jay’s eyes, so Lloyd figures he can let it go and laugh a little himself.

This time. They’re gonna have to talk about the babysitting thing later.

“We really missed you guys,” Lloyd finally says as his laughter ebbs, his traitor voice cracking in the middle. “A-a lot. I’m really glad you’re back. Like, you have no idea.”

“I think we kinda do,” Jay breathes out on dying laughter. “We missed you too, you know. We couldn’t even check if you were alright, we had no idea what was happening. You guys were realms away.”

Lloyd swallows back the ‘but you were dead’. Jay doesn’t need that knowledge right now. Jay needs to be able to relax, and to get more than three hours of sleep for once.

“Well, we’re in the same one now,” he says, with a wry smile. “Hopefully we can stay that way, for a while.”

“Do not jinx us,” Jay points his finger at him, and Lloyd manages a grin that feels genuine this time, shrugging. He’s beyond pleased to find out that the action doesn’t hurt so much, only feeling the faint twinges of pain this time. Lloyd stifles a yawn instead of replying, and Jay fixes him with a look, jerking his head back toward the bedroom.

“If your arm’s better, you should get back to sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lloyd mutters, biting back a groan as he stands, wobbling a bit as his arm swings loosely. “That goes for you, too.”

“I’m not the one with designer bags for eyes,” Jay says, even though he clearly has dark circles worse than Lloyd. He pauses, eyeing Lloyd’s arm. “You really shouldn’t sleep with this on, you know,” he adds, tapping his wrist, nails clacking oddly on the metal.

Lloyd cringes. “I know,” he mutters. “I’m just — I don’t wanna have to put it on, if we…”

“If we’re attacked in the middle of the night?” Jay says drily, but there’s understanding in his voice. “Yeah, I get that. But hey, how about this: you sleep with it off for tonight, and if anyone comes in to kill you, I’ll take ‘em out.”

Lloyd raises an eyebrow. “Lightning blast to the face?”

“Lightning blast to the face,” Jay nods solemnly.

Lloyd shifts, arms wrapped around himself, his real fingers clenching anxiously at the juncture where his prosthetic meets his arm. It’s tempting, the idea of having the heavy weight off for the night. Really tempting.

But that also means taking it off, and that sounds…less than fun, especially after all the pain he’s already been in tonight.

“I’ll consider it,” Lloyd says, smiling weakly. “But I have full faith in you.”

Jay’s eyes are understanding as he nods, knocking his fist gently against Lloyd’s arm again. “Good. Now, bed. Practice starts back tomorrow, remember? You don’t wanna be dead tired for that.”

Lloyd’s heart sinks. Oh, no. He’d forgotten.

“Aw, man,” he moans. “This is gonna be a disaster.”

“Don’t say that,” Jay says, clearly trying to sound optimistic. “It’ll go fine. Wait and see.”

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

It is, in fact, a disaster.

The first practice with the guys after everything reminds him a whole lot of his first time sparring with Nya down one arm, and that — well, sucks. That’s about as cheerfully as he can put it.

“Do you need a hand?” Lloyd looks up at the voice, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun. Zane’s standing over him, looking slightly apologetic, his hand outstretched.

Lloyd takes the offered hand, pulling himself with a grunt of effort. “Yeah, a right one would be nice.”

Jay and Nya groan in unison. Zane just flicks his eyes skywards, his mouth curving up slightly as he hauls Lloyd the rest of the way to his feet. Lloyd wobbles a bit, caught off guard, and Zane steadies him, grabbing for his prosthetic before he can lose balance. Zane’s hand lingers a little too long around it, his eyes flashing in concentration where they rest on the metal fingers. Lloyd’s about to ask him what’s up — growing slightly defensive — when Zane lets go, blinking once. The look of furrowed concentration stays on his face even as he steps back, though, and Lloyd’s not sure if he likes that.

“Sorry, Lloyd,” Cole says, interrupting his train of thought as he steps forward, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck in guilt. “I didn’t think you’d — I shouldn’t have been hitting that hard.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” Kai snaps testily, his eyes flashing in the dangerous kind of protectiveness Lloyd’s used to seeing against people not in their family. He quickly intervenes, waving his hands.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, chill out,” he says, hastily. “I wasn’t paying attention, it was my fault. Besides, it’s not any worse than what Nya gave me the first time we sparred with, uh…the arm.”

Nya rolls her eyes. “You kept tripping everywhere. That’s not my fault.”

Lloyd goes a bit red, but he doesn’t argue back. He’s pretty sure Pixal has video footage that would invalidate any argument he’d have, anyways.

Kai looks between the two of them, then seems to lose some of the fire, shoulders sagging. “Just…be more careful,” he mutters. “Lloyd’s arm is still pretty new.”

Lloyd’s head swivels to Kai, his mouth half-open, incredulous. He begs Kai’s pardon, who, again, lost their arm here and who definitely didn’t? Who knows what they’re talking about, and who knows absolutely nothing—

“Yeah, no, for sure,” Cole nods back, like Lloyd isn’t even here. “I’ll let up on the heavier attacks, too.”

Lloyd snaps his mouth shut tightly. He wants to scream. They’re all acting like Lloyd is glass, like he’s fragile. And that’s not the problem. The problem isn’t his arm. The problem isn’t even that he’s not used to the prosthetic, because at this point he kinda is. (He’s getting there.) No, the problem is that the guys are all walking on eggshells around him, to the point where the hits they do throw at him are so sporadic it’s completely throwing Lloyd off. Like he’s being attacked by uncoordinated chickens with no heart in their attacks, or something.

It’s actually a pretty good strategy to keep in mind, he muses, for another time when the target isn’t him.

“Um, no, you won’t,” he says instead, biting his cheek to keep the edge out of his voice. “You’re going to actually attack me. You’re holding back so much right now you’re handicapping yourself worse than me without a metal arm.”

Cole looks taken aback. “I just sent you to the ground, bud,” he says. “Hard.”

“You only sent me to the ground because I wasn’t expecting you to hit like Jay,” Lloyd shoots back.

“Hey!”

“If that’s the tactic you wanna use, fine, but only if you’ve got a plan for when I blast you right back from the ground.”

Cole blinks. “Do your powers even work with the prosthetic?”

“I do have another arm,” Lloyd growls. He immediately feels bad, because he sounds angrier than he should be, but that subject’s touchy. He hasn’t tried to use his powers with the prosthetic yet, apart from the blinding blast of energy he’d given off when he’d first gotten them back, and he doesn’t want to find out if another use will blow his arm to pieces or not.

“It should work with it, anyways,” Nya assures them, though there’s a spark of uncertainty in her eyes. “Your powers are pretty intuitive. They protect you, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to hurt you like that.”

Lloyd doesn’t say how completely unfounded this is, because his powers tried to protect him during the fight with his father and they sure as heck hurt him then, but she does have…a bit of a point. And again — there’s like, the glaring fact that his arm did not explode when he went supernova on top of Borg Tower. And Lloyd’s control is way better these days, so in all honesty, it’ll probably be fine.

But on the off chance. Lloyd is trying to be more careful, lately.

Now the guys, though. The guys are taking careful to a completely ridiculous level.

“Maybe we should tone it down for today, just to be safe,” Kai says, exchanging looks with Cole. A vein somewhere in Lloyd’s forehead begins to throb. “We don’t want to take any risks.”

“Oh, yeah, like we weren’t taking plenty of risks while you guys were gone in the First Realm. Oh wait, we did, and we were just fine then,” Lloyd snaps.

He immediately regrets it, because Kai’s expression does this awful crumpling thing, and Cole’s eyes widen painfully. Jay just looks down, and Lloyd hates himself.

“I-I didn’t mean—” he stammers, grasping desperately for the words to apologize, when Zane lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, silencing him.

“How about I train with Lloyd one on one for a bit,” he says. The corners of his mouth quirk up, humorlessly. “I think cooling down might be in order.”

Lloyd feels his cheeks heat, but he ducks his head, nodding. Kai looks like he want to protest, but he shuts his mouth, nodding as well, and Lloyd’s relieved to see a kind of understanding in his eyes.

He hopes he does, Lloyd thinks to himself, as Zane leads them away from the others, to the other side of the yard they’re using for training. He hopes, that Kai and Jay and Cole know he isn’t actually trying to attack them for getting yanked into another realm instead of being crushed to death, because that is definitely not something he would ever complain about—

“So, how strong is your arm?”

Lloyd blinks rapidly, yanked back to the present. “My — what?”

Zane repeats the question, patiently. “Your arm, the prosthetic one. Do you know how strong it is?”

“Like…as in durability, or how hard can I hit with it?” Lloyd asks, flexing a metal wrist.

“Ah. That’s a good question,” Zane tilts his head. “Both, I suppose.”

“Um, pretty strong, I guess,” Lloyd winces, remembering the last time he’d tested how strong it was, and he’d sent the punching bag through the wall instead. “Most of the strength is in my forearm, ‘cause it’s just metal and gears there. It gets a little dicey where it connects, up here, but it can take the heavy hits.”

His father had the honor of testing that part out, he thinks bitterly.

Zane nods, his eyes calculating. “Good. Then show me a heavy hit.”

It takes a second for the question to register, but when it does, Lloyd blanches. “No,” he says, firmly. “No way.” He remembers how the punching bag crumpled beneath his metal fist. He remembers too well how his father, full power, had actually buckled under several of his hits. The idea of hitting one of the guys with that same force makes him sick.

“Ah,” Zane says, and there’s a spark in his eyes. “So now you want to start holding back.”

“This — this is different,” Lloyd grinds out, trying not to go red in embarrassment. “It’s one thing to hold back entirely, but my arm is — its different, Zane, it’s way stronger now, and I don’t wanna hurt you guys with it.”

“I’m not going to break, Lloyd,” Zane says, cooly.

Lloyd bites his lip. “Look, I’m serious, you don’t understan—”

The end of Lloyd’s sentence cuts off with a yelp as Zane sweeps his leg out from beneath him, sending him sprawling to the ground. He looks up at him, wounded, and Zane just tilts his head.

“You said you want us to stop holding back,” he says, challenging. “You want a real fight, so fight back. Hit me.”

That’s all the warning Lloyd gets before Zane sweeps another kick toward him, forcing Lloyd to roll out of the way, somersaulting backwards before springing back to his feet. He opens his mouth to protest, but Zane’s elbow is already whistling toward his head, followed by his fist, and Lloyd’s too busy blocking and dodging to get any word out edgewise.

He’s not going to hit him with it, Lloyd tells himself fiercely. He’s not, but — but Zane is actually attacking him now, with all the cool calculation and devastating accuracy Zane is really good at, and if Lloyd doesn’t launch a counterattack soon, Zane’s going to obliterate him in full view of everyone.

Through the buzz of adrenaline, Lloyd bites back a curse. He’s forgotten, for a crippling moment, how smart Zane is. The way he’s pressing on him is leaving his left arm for blocking, which means the only way he’s gonna get a decent hit in is with his right. So either Lloyd sucks it up and hits Zane with the metal arm already, or he’s going to eat dirt the rest of the day.

Darn it, Zane, Lloyd thinks heatedly, barely dodging the next barrage of hits, wincing as one clips his shoulder. He’s just gonna have to do it. They both asked for this—

Lloyd suddenly ducks, darting beneath Zane’s blow then squaring back, bringing his fist up and swinging hard — just to crash right into Zane’s own blocked fist with a loud, screeching clang of metal.

Lloyd blinks. The hit he’d just thrown wasn’t holding back — it was way harder than he should’ve thrown, actually — but Zane just slides a few feet back, barely flinching. He flexes his wrist, a grin curving up the edge of his mouth.

“You aren’t the only one with a metal arm, you know,” he says evenly, and oh. Oh. Lloyd stops dead, staring at him.

So Lloyd’s just an idiot. Here he is, freaking out about how different his arm is now, how no one gets it, and Zane’s been metal this whole entire time.

“I…” Lloyd trails off, staring at him wordlessly. He feels so stupid, a total sham of the leader he’s supposed to be. He’s overlooked the most obvious fact ever, to the point where he’s been severely misjudging Zane, and that’s…that’s bad. That’s very bad, if he’s calling himself leader here.

And that, Lloyd realizes, with an unpleasant jolt, is the real problem with all this. Not the guys, not the arm. It’s Lloyd, failing to lead them against Harumi, failing to lead them against his father, and failing to lead them now. No wonder they can’t take him seriously, when Lloyd can’t even give them the decency of doing the same.

“Oh,” he whispers.

“It’s difficult,” Zane says, quietly. “To see yourself as one way, then suddenly as another. Even if it’s just one limb. Adjusting can be…difficult.”

Lloyd ducks his head, swallowing. “I’m sorry.”

Zane makes a noise that could be a huff of laughter, if it wasn’t so exasperated. “You don’t need to apologize. That is not the point I’m trying to make.”

Lloyd stares at the ground, not meeting his eyes. Zane’s footsteps draw close, until he’s right in front of him.

“Lloyd.” Zane’s hand is gentle on his shoulder, and Lloyd slowly looks up at him, feeling very much like he’s nine years old again, and Zane is the older brother who knows infinitely more about the world than he ever will.

“We are more than just a team for you to lead,” he says, gently. “We’re your family, above all else. We may not have been here when you needed us, but we are here now, and we want to be. We trust you. We just want you to trust us back.”

“I do,” Lloyd says, fervently. “I do, Zane, and I didn’t mean to — I never blamed—” He cuts off, shaking his head and swallowing. “I wanted to be there, too,” he rasps. “I — we couldn’t be there for you guys, either. You were alone, too. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to any of us.”

“No,” Zane says, sounding very tired. “No, it wasn’t.”

Not for the first time, Lloyd wonders how heavily the guys edited their own story of their time apart, and how much of the darker stuff they decided to leave out. The hollow look in Zane’s eyes leaves his stomach sinking. Probably a lot.

“B-but we’re together now,” Lloyd finally speaks up, cringing at the waver in his voice. “And, um. I know I’ve been most of the problem, but — but I trust you guys. I trust you, so — could you show me how to use my arm?”

Zane looks at him, and Lloyd offers him a tentative smile. “Since you’re the resident expert, and all.”

Zane’s mouth quirks up in a grin of amusement, and Lloyd feels a happy flare of victory at the action.

“I wouldn’t call myself that,” he says, lightly. “But yes, I can help adjust your training. Provided, of course, you throw better hits. No offense intended, but that one was…pitiful, at best.”

Lloyd chokes on a laugh. “Okay, if that’s how it is. I’ll show you a real hit. Just don’t go crying to Cole when I wipe the floor with you.”

“I assure you,” and there’s an edge to Zane’s smile that promises Lloyd’s not leaving here without his fair share of bruises. “I have no intention of doing so.”

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

Training with Zane helps even more than he’d thought it would. Not only does Lloyd start to learn how to better use his prosthetic to an advantage, the others pick up on it and start actually fighting Lloyd again, well-practiced moves and techniques that force him to fight back, and by the third week of practices they’ve all slid back into a steady routine, even if there is still the occasional hesitation when it comes to Lloyd’s right arm.

Except for Nya. She’s been sending him sprawling across the mat since day one, no problem, and even with her healing arm she’s never stopped threatening to do it again.

Lloyd’s beyond grateful, though — he’s starting to almost feel normal again, to feel a little like his old self, with his proper place on the team, and he finally, finally feels like he’s doing something right. So he’s got no right to complain whatsoever, when the increased training leaves his arm feeling so sore he may as well have gotten hit by a truck.

A throbbing ache shoots through his right wrist again, pulsing up through the bones of his arm. Lloyd’s fingers grasp on air, wavering once, twice before it clicks that there’s nothing there. A croaking laugh almost bubbles up in his throat. His arm is in agony and it’s not even there. There is no wrist there to hurt, he doesn’t even have his prosthetic on right now. So why—

Phantom pain, he reminds himself firmly, before clicking the prosthetic back into place, the motion slowly growing familiar. It’s just a ghost, like Morro. Lloyd survived him, he can survive this.

Besides, he doesn’t have time to be hallucinating an arm that’s not there. He’s gotta have his best face on right now, because this…this is going to take a lot out of him.

Lloyd stares at Kryptarium Prison with hollow eyes, trying to rid himself of the icy shiver that’s crawling up and down his spine. They’ve since fixed the damage to the walls, and he’s eternally grateful for that — but the stretch of stone that’s been recently repaired is obvious, and Lloyd can easily pick out exactly where he went bursting through when—

When Lloyd’s brain was an idiot, he scolds himself, as the shiver threatens to turn into a full-blown panic attack. Those memories need to go right back into the dark hole he’s shoved them in, where they can stay for the rest of his entire life.

Besides, the person he’s about to see is gonna bring back enough bad memories, as it is.

Lloyd swallows, forcing past the fear closing in around his throat as he finally starts walking again, his feet practically dragging toward the prison doors. His arm throbs in pain with every step, spreading to the aching twin points on the back of his right hand.

Which isn’t there, he reminds himself fiercely. There’s no hand to hurt, move past it, brain.

The doors slide open for him with a mechanical hiss, a chiming bell warning the guards of his entrance. Lloyd’s in full gi, hood pulled back, so no one stops him, the outermost guards just nodding to him as he passes. Lloyd barely manages a grimace of greeting for them, where he’d normally have at least something sincere. But it’s hard enough, trying to keep his expression impassive. Each step further into the prison feels like a step closer to his doom, and this is ridiculous because the only other time he’s felt this nervous walking up a set of stairs was the Overlord—

“Name, please?”

Lloyd blinks, abruptly realizing he’s already reached the check-in gate. He shakes his head, trying to reorient himself. Name, please, he thinks drily, as he looks up. Like this guard doesn’t know who he is, entirely decked out in green, it isn’t like he’s been on TV a whole lot in the last month—

Anyways.

“Lloyd Garmadon,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound like a gasp for air. “I’d like to see my — um, Lord Garmadon. He should be in heavy lockdown.”

Private lockdown, somewhere dark and deep, probably, Lloyd thinks. He tells himself he doesn’t feel anything at that. His father probably likes it, anyways, being alone and in the dark. That’s all it seems he’d even wanted, except for maybe her—

Lloyd thrusts the hot flash of emotion down deep along with the rest of that thought, and tries to focus on the guard’s reply.

“—terribly sorry, but I can’t let you in.”

Lloyd’s brain stutters to a halt. “Sorry, could you repeat that?” he frowns, taken aback. He doesn’t like to throw his weight around, but Lloyd’s pretty sure that the ninja are supposed to have clearance to the entire prison. Especially after everything that’s happened, he and Nya practically have clearance to the entire city at this point.

“Your name’s been blacklisted,” the guard chews on the edge of his lip nervously. “Y-you aren’t allowed access to the prisoner in question.”

Lloyd blinks rapidly. “What?”

The guard is visibly sweating now. “The, uh, the records say I can’t let you in. To see him. Not without a signature.”

Lloyd’s stomach does a weird swooping thing, like he’s missed a step on the stairs. If he needs a signature, then someone had to go out of their way to block him — specifically him — from seeing Garmadon. Someone who the warden apparently decided had the right to make decisions for Lloyd.

“Who’s signature,” Lloyd grits out, fury barely held back.

The poor guard — because he really doesn’t deserve this, but oh, Lloyd is angry — shrinks even smaller in his seat, swallowing.

“Wu,” he finally says, stammering. “Your uncle, he — I’m sorry, but he technically has the right…”

Lloyd steps back, metal creaking as his fist forms. “Thank you,” he clips out tightly, then spins in place, hoping his eyes haven’t gone supernova yet.

No, he’s saving that for his uncle.

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

“How could you do that.”

Sensei Wu barely stirs, visibly unaffected by the way Lloyd’s just slammed his door open, and is currently fuming in the doorway like a very angry part-Oni crime of nature.

“It was, at the moment, the correct course of action to take.” He sips evenly at his tea, not even attempting to pretend he doesn’t know exactly what Lloyd’s talking about.

Lloyd sees red. “You had no right.”

Sensei Wu finally looks at him, sighing wearily. “I’m your family, Lloyd. I have every right—”

“Not this one!”

Sensei’s eyes are sympathetic, but unrelenting. “Your mother told me what happened, Lloyd. What you did.”

Lloyd almost swallows his tongue at the shock of surprise, but it quickly mixes with a hot flare of betrayal in his chest. It’s his arm, it’s his story to tell.

“Cool.” The words scrape through his teeth. “That doesn’t mean you can block me from seeing him!”

“Your head isn’t in the right place to see him, Lloyd. Neither is your heart. I believe you know this, too.”

“My head—” Lloyd trips over his words in anger. “My head is fine! So’s my heart, thanks.”

Sensei Wu’s eyes narrow. “You’ve never been the best of liars, nephew.”

Lloyd is going to smash his stupid teapot. “Then maybe your perception is still off from the First Realm, uncle.”

A part of Lloyd’s soul dies at the sentence, because it’s the most dangerously rude thing he’s said to his uncle since he was like, eight. But he swallows it back, because he has a bad feeling it’s not going to be the worst thing he says in this conversation.

His uncle’s lips press tightly together, and Lloyd feels more than sees the crackle of anger in his eyes as the atmosphere heats, no longer a conversation between sensei and student. It’s a family conversation, now. “I hardly need much perception to see how traumatized you are from recent events. It’s not difficult to miss.”

“Traumatized—” Lloyd sputters, his own eyes narrowing. “You know what, fine, so what? It’s not like I haven’t been — been traumatized, or whatever, before,” he snaps. “Morro put my head pretty out of place, and you were fine with that.”

Sensei Wu’s eyes flash. “I was not ‘fine’ with that. I was nowhere near fine with that, but at that time you were equipped to deal with it. And you were not forcing yourself to face Morro on some shred of false hope you know will only hurt.”

Lloyd full-body flinches back at that last part. But it’s not that — it’s not because —

See, Lloyd knows. He’s had it physically beaten into him multiple times, that he’s not the father he knew. He knows that he’s not really him, that he will never be him, that he will never regain the father he lost no matter how much this one looks like him.

But — but Lloyd’s heart can only take so much at once, and he’s dangerously close to reaching a point where nothing will repair that kind of break. He can take a hundred prison walls and his arm cut off fifty times in a row, but that is something he’d rather die than have to face right now.

And to hear the phrase false hope coming from the one person he’d hoped would understand nearly breaks Lloyd on the spot.

So he gets angry instead.

“You taught me not to give in to fear,” his voice is icy, words measured and slow. “You taught me not to put off until tomorrow what I can deal with today, and you wanted me to make my own decisions.”

“Yet I do not recall teaching you to disregard any and all concerns for your wellbeing,” his uncle replies, his voice just as glacial. “Nor do I remember teaching you to argue back against my orders.”

“You made me master!” Lloyd nearly shouts back, barely restraining himself. “You told me to start giving the orders, how am I supposed to do that if you don’t trust me? You can’t keep doing this to me, either you trust me or you don’t!”

“I do trust you, but I will not lose another member of my family because they believe they’re stronger than they are!” Uncle Wu snaps, his eyes flashing, and for a beat Lloyd can almost see the Oni in his blood, as well. “I’ve forced you to face your father too many times, Lloyd. I will not let him continue to hurt you.”

“He isn’t hurting me!” Lloyd bursts out, despite knowing those words are a stone-cold lie. But— “He’s already hurt me, I almost died, what worse can he do from a prison cell?”

“More than you will acknowledge!” his uncle barks back. He exhales tightly, eyes closing briefly before re-opening. “Lloyd, I understand that you are upset with my decision. But in time, you will see that this was the right one. Your perception is clouded to the point where you can no longer see yourself properly, and a leader who continues to put themselves further into that state is not fit to be leader.”

Lloyd’s teeth snap together with an audible clack, and his fists tighten, fingernails biting into his palms and metal fingers creaking. “You’ve been gone for months,” he grinds out. “For a year, and I led just fine that whole time. You can’t just come back now and say I’m — I’m a screwup—”

“That is not what I—”

“And you keep talking about decisions, when you didn’t even ask me before—”

“Lloyd—”

“—going behind my back is way out of line and you know it!”

“This is not—”

“And my perception is fine, I do see myself—”

“Lloyd, I said—”

“—and I’m fine, Uncle Wu, I swear, I can face him I’m fine—”

“That is enough, Lloyd!”

Lloyd flinches back as his uncle’s voice cracks out, angrier than he’s heard it. Wu’s knuckles turn white around his cup handle, and his eyes glint with the steel of his glare. “This is my decision, and I will not move from it until you can prove that you are ready.”

Until he can prove he’s ready. Like Lloyd hasn’t had to prove again and again—

Like he doesn’t believe in Lloyd either when he was the one—

Like Lloyd wasn’t willing to lose an arm not to fail him—

Something dangerous in Lloyd snaps.

“You’re just as bad as him,” he spits, venomous like a snake. “You’re all the same, you think you know what’s best for me and you never care how I feel! You don’t even care about me, you just care about the stupid Green Ninja and your stupid prophecies and I’m sick of it, I’m so sick of being your Green Ninja, I hate it!”

Sensei Wu goes stark white. His fingers tremble and his teacup drops to the table, his eyes painfully wide. “Lloyd,” he whispers, weakly. “That’s not—”

“Fine,” Lloyd snaps over him, blinking back angry tears. “Fine, I’ll stay away from him. I’ll stay away from all of you. I hate being part of this family anyways.”

He turns on heel before he can look at his uncle a second longer, before the tears can start to fall and he has the chance to say anything else. There’s a high-pitched buzzing in his ears as he storms back down the hall, the lightbulbs above him sparking wildly in his wake before shorting out, exploding into tiny bits of glass that rain over the floor.

Lloyd darts past them, hurrying his footsteps as he tries to escape the apartment with the rest of the lights unscathed. Shoving open the stairwell door, Lloyd makes a break for the rooftop, where he at least knows it’ll be quiet, and there won’t be as many lights for him to burst, and his uncle can’t—

Lloyd pushes the rooftop door open and stumbles out with a heaving gasp, drawing air in desperately as if that’ll ground him. His heart is racing way too fast, way too angry, and his power is zinging all over his skin like a swarm of angry bees. He’s almost dizzy with how angry he is — except that’s not right, he’s not just angry, there’s a whole wave of emotion coming in from somewhere that’s threatening to — to drown him, and this is why Lloyd should always keep things bottled back where they belong—

A transformer across the street blows, and Lloyd jumps in alarm as it explodes, showering sparks down toward the street below. Lloyd blinks past the blurring tears, his stomach dropping. There’s a flickering of lights before the apartment complex below it goes dark, power lost as startled cries sound from the open windows. The power lines around him start thrumming dangerously, reaching a higher-pitched whine that prefaces bursting. Lloyd’s throat closes over in panic. Oh, no. He didn’t think — he can't be this bad. He doesn’t lose control like this, he — he needs to stop, right now, or the entire city’s going to lose power.

He clenches his fists again, trying to reign the power in, to pull it back to him, but it only sputters more wildly out of control. Lloyd’s hands are trembling now, shaking worse than before, and in a desperate attempt for it to stop he crumples to the rooftop, pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, burying his head in the crook of his flesh elbow and squeezing tight, metal digging painfully into his leg as he draws in tighter and tighter — like he can crush himself down into something small enough that he won’t feel so much anymore, and his power will stop, stop—

But it’s like he’s back in the prison, his power sparking wildly out of control and not listening to him. Just like her. Like his father, like his uncle, nothing he’s gotten from his family ever listens to him when it matters, and why should they. Why will they ever, when all Lloyd’s ever going to be is a weapon, a scribbled line in a prophecy or a stepping stone for power—

It’s his power. His power, and he can’t even get it to listen to him.

Lloyd listens to the power lines around him explode and lets his sweatshirt sleeve soak up the tears.

Lying to himself can only get him so far. He’s never going to be able to prove he’s ready to face his father.

Not when he doesn’t even know if he can.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #lloyd garmadon #nya smith #kai smith #jay walker #zane julien #cole brookstone #the focus is on jay and zane tho #for this part ahaHA i'm not kidding u guys its so long #anyways a huge thanks to everyone who requested more!!#u sadists #and special thanks to ninjawhoa for making sure i don't totally butcher lloyd's arm #i love u #my fic

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lloydskywalkers · 5 years ago

Text

what stays and what fades away

Here I am yet again with season finale aftermath fic, because it’s my favorite thing to write about and we, um....could’ve used some more of it, after that one.

Anyways full disclosure this is straight-up angst that takes a hard left turn into sap somewhere along the way, and I’m posting with less edits than I want but it is laTE so! Here is my take on some Zangst ™️

His hands will not stop shaking.

It’s an odd thing, a subtle, rattling kind of tremor that starts in his fingers and spreads up his arms, until he’s forced to cross his arms tightly for fear of it spreading further. It lives there, trembling in his hands the entire trek back across the snowy wilderness, through every one of his family’s stories, and only worsens as they reach the village.

Zane doesn’t understand it. He’s not supposed to shake like this.

But he doesn’t understand how the villagers can look on him in kindness, either, so his vision might simply still be frosted over.

His hands keep shaking, all throughout the cheers and reunions and goodbyes. Zane watches as the villagers embrace his family, hoping desperately they won’t pull him into the mix. He watches the excited children that swarm around Kai’s legs, watches as his brother pushes back the heavy exhaustion that lurks behind his eyes to smile, lighting bright little flames from his fingertips for them. There’s a relief behind his eyes that Zane spots, and he remembers, with a flash, that last he’d seen Kai, his powers had been lost.

It’s only been a matter of days, or weeks at most, for his family since then. Their eyes are not dulled in age, as so many of this realm’s inhabitant’s are.

And yet it feels so very, very long ago for him.

His family finally pulls him closer, forcing him into the mix, and Zane’s heart stutters in fear. But the old woman who faces him has nothing but kindness in her face, and care in her touch. Her eyes hold a kind of gentleness that reminds him keenly of his father, and for a moment, Zane wants to cry.

Then the woman speaks, and she thanks him.

She thanks him for freeing them, for overthrowing Vex, for ending their eternal winter. Her words spread through the crowd of villagers and they echo her with words like hero and savior.

For a moment, Zane can’t breathe. Had he eaten anything in the past decade, he might throw it up.

He might be sick, anyways. The fiery ache in his gut suggests he is.

______________________________________________________________________

Zane’s hands refuse to stop shaking even as the bright whites and cold blues of the Never Realm fade away to the vivid colors of their own realm, even as the frost and ice that’s lived perpetually in their clothes and hair finally starts to melt, condensing in the sun and dripping down their foreheads and noses, soaking their clothes.

Jay snickers as Kai’s hair droops under the weight of the moisture, and Cole rings his shirt out with a wry expression as Lloyd wrinkles his nose, swiping droplets from his eyes before Nya finally sweeps the water from their skin effortlessly, her smile bright as the water bends easily under her power.

Zane stands still, letting the droplets bead at the end of his fingers before falling to the ground. He moves his hand slightly, watching the light shift, and for a moment, the droplets are colored dark red.

Then Nya gently touches his hand, the water evaporating from his skin, and she smiles at him.

“Don’t want you rusting.”

Zane feels as if he already has. He musters a smile back for her, but he’s careful to keep his distance. He’s careful not to touch.

He’s been wary of that — he’s allowed himself that first hug, that first tight embrace from Lloyd, his little brother’s shoulders trembling as he clung to him, the rest of his family piling on soon after. He allowed himself that, and tells himself it was already more than he deserved.

He returns Sensei Wu’s embrace when he throws himself at him, because Zane remembers family and a comforting hand on his shoulder. He presses his face against Pixal’s when she clambers onto him, because he’s missed her like a wound and her laugh is brighter than any sun.

But then the others follow through the portal, their faces raw and scabbed from cold, bruised and tired and their eyes suddenly older than Zane’s memories show him, and he draws back.

His hands are shaking again. An error.

He does not trust them to touch.

“It might just be the time,” Jay offers later, as they piece themselves together once again, his eyebrows furrowed as he tries to inspect Zane’s hand. Zane yanks it from his reach before he can, fear spiking like ice in his throat. His voice won’t work to excuse the error, but Jay’s eyes soften anyways, and he draws back. Understanding.

As if any of them understand what he’s done.

“Maybe he's cold,” Lloyd suggests. Jay laughs at that, and even Sensei cracks a smile.

Zane does not.

Lloyd doesn’t, either.

_______________________________________________________________________

His vision is clearer than it’s been in years, and yet Zane finds the world moves in a hazy fog around him.

Pixal is a steady guide beside him, her eyes sharp in concern as Sensei ushers them back into the monastery — home, and if it wasn’t for his memories telling him it’s been years, Zane could’ve sworn it’d been yesterday he’d woken up here, the nightmare fading from his eyes in the light of his family.

Oh, how he wishes.

He doesn’t take Pixal’s hand, but he lets her lean close, her shoulder knocking against his in a supportive comfort as they crash around the room they use for injuries, for emergencies and patch-ups and after-mission recovery. Zane’s vision remains hazy until his family is sitting down around him, and then it clears into sharp, painful clarity.

They’re exhausted, all of them — tired-eyed, thinner and paler than they were. They’re littered in scrapes and bruises and the now-familiar blistered skin of frostbite. Cole’s arms are a spectacular horror in and of themselves, protecting only by the sheer force of his power, and Sensei spends ages fretting over him.

“I’m fine, Sensei, I’m — ow, ow—“

Given that Cole’s arms are as red as Kai’s uniform and the slightest movement has him wincing, he is wildly unsuccessful at convincing anyone of this, and ends up confined to a bed right next to Lloyd.

The others aren’t much better off. Nya’s lips are so chapped they’re still bleeding, her hands raw and scraped where she worries them, constantly sniffing from her running nose. Jay refuses to sit still, bouncing from foot to foot as if to banish the remaining cold, the skin where his freckles fleck bright red and ugly from blistering. And Kai— Kai is frost-bitten and bruised and his hands —

Zane didn’t know Kai could burn, but he has. Kai’s hands — worn, familiar hands, hands that protect — are burned and blistered, forever scarred by the lengths he went.

“You pushed it too far,” Sensei Wu tells him gravely, Kai wincing as he spreads salve on his hands. “Your power is great, but your body has limits.”

Kai’s eyes hold no regret. “I had too,” is all he says. He had to take that risk.

A risk to stop Zane.

Zane’s chest is in knots, his gut writhing like Aspheera’s snakes have set fire to it. His hands clench and unclench in his lap, the tremors growing worse.

He does not want to watch Lloyd. He does not want to recall the memories he has of Lloyd’s heartbroken eyes, of the crack of breath as ice slammed against his little brother’s chest. But he forces himself to.

He forces himself to, because he realizes, rather quickly, that he’s overlooked something. An error, one Zane does not realize until later. One he does not realize until Kai runs a shaking hand over the ice-burned skin of Lloyd’s arms and neck, until Lloyd doubles over with his eyes screwed up in pain against the bright lights above them. Nya’s already taken care of the gash at the corner of his head, just past the ends of his hair, an ugly, streaking thing that speaks of cruelty and carelessness.

Kai’s eyes burn hot. “Who—“

“Vex.”

Lloyd’s answer is firm and unshaken, steady in a way Lloyd never is when he lies.

“Vex,” he repeats, even as the bruise on his shoulder that looks like the edge of a step turns purple. Even as the reddened mark of blistered cold on his wrist takes the shape of a handprint. “Vex did this.”

There is an error in Lloyd’s words, and an error Zane has overlooked.

Lloyd is the only one who set foot in the frozen throne room.

Lloyd is the only one who saw him.

_______________________________________________________________________

“It’s okay, Zane,” Cole tells him softly, after Zane has violently jerked away from his touch. “You didn’t mean to. It’s alright, we get it.”

Zane shakes his head, unable to look at him. They do not understand. They cannot.

They would not allow Zane to remain among them, if they did.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Can you make it snow?”

Zane is confused at the voice, at first. He then realizes that the source is below his eye-level, only coming up to his waist and tugging at the edge of his gi. The newest addition to their family, the newest color to join their bright array.

Lloyd stares up at him, red eyes inquisitive under his unruly mop of hair.

“I am…sorry?” Zane asks, as his question registers.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “Can you make it snow. Like, for snowmen, and sledding, and stuff. Y’know, snow.”

“Oh.” Zane blinks. He knows snow. The snow of Birchwood, the snow he found his powers in. The snow of his home, where his father had lived, once.

Kai would tell him his feelings are mixed, about snow.

“I…suppose I can,” he says, feeling the pulse of the golden weapons in his blood, tied to his power. He feels the same pulse echo through him as Lloyd grabs his hands, his eyes excited.

“Show me,” he demands.

Zane blinks, but he finally smiles, relenting. He bends his knees until he’s at Lloyd’s level, carefully cupping his hands, holding them out so Lloyd can see. With a gentle tug, he brings the softest of flurries to life in his hands, crystallized snowflakes swirling in a bright ball of light above his fingertips.

Lloyd stares at the glowing white orb in awe, the light of it reflected in the bright shine of his eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” Lloyd says, his voice hushed.

Zane does not think he has ever even heard him use the word ‘beautiful’, but the soft way he says it sounds more natural than any of the evil cackles Lloyd has forced from his lips.

“I am glad you think so,” Zane says, then he blows the snowflakes in his face, gentle flurries exploding out at him. Lloyd giggles in delight, blinking snow from his lashes as he tries in vain to catch them on his tongue. Zane smiles, a bubble of laughter welling up in his chest as Lloyd looks at him in awe, his own smile bright.

_______________________________________________________________________

Lloyd stares at him, eyes misted in pain and welling tears, flinching back from the ice freezing bitterly against his skin.

“Zane, please.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Perhaps memory loss was the easier route.

_______________________________________________________________________

While he feels like he’s spent years asleep, he tries for it again, because that’s what everyone else immediately does. He turns the world off and flees for the darkness, as if that will hold some form of sanctuary for him. But he sees the terrified faces of the Formlings when he closes his eyes, hears screaming and the sickly sweet whispering of Vex’s words in his ears when he plasters his hands over them, and sleep is lost for him.

Zane wakes up screaming once, twice, then crying a third, and Kai or Cole are there with hushed words of comfort that he can’t hear, until Lloyd wakes up crying as well.

His is a different kind though, double-visioned tears that to turn to doubled-over sick in the bathroom, his eyes dizzy and unfocused, and Kai’s hand comes away from the back of his head a dark red.

His cry of panic wakes Jay and Cole as well, Nya soon to follow, all of them cramming around in the bathroom as Kai panics and Lloyd’s words slur and Zane stands frozen.

Kai tugs at Lloyd to drag him to Sensei, and the thin fabric of Lloyds’s pajama shirt slips over his shoulder. Zane recoils violently. Beneath his clothes, Lloyd’s skin is a hideous collage of reds and blues, purple and blackening blood vessels beneath the raw, ice-burned skin.

Vex did this, echoes in his ears, and Zane swallows back nausea.

Vex did not have hands that freeze. Vex could not leave cruel patterns of frostbite on other’s skin. Vex did not wield elemental power, and Vex could not command dragons that tear up the mech his brother was in.

Zane falters, his knees buckling. The others will look after Lloyd. The others will protect him.

Zane has proven himself quite capable of doing the opposite.

So he flees, runs from the light and the warmth of his family, and hides in the dark like a coward.

_______________________________________________________________________

“He’s going to be alright, you know.”

Pixal’s voice is gentle and reassuring as she pulls herself onto the monastery roof, sitting quietly beside him. Zane looks away, his eyes staring up at the brightness of the stars above until his eyes water.

“Sensei said it’s just the concussion, but it should heal,” Pixal continues.

Zane bites his lip. Lloyd is tough — if he didn’t know that before, he’d know it now, he thinks bitterly.

But Zane’s mind is an analytical one, and that is a curse right now. Because head injuries — head injuries could mean brain damage, and brain damage could mean memory loss, and memory loss could mean your brother turns against you and freezes half a realm—

No, the entire realm, hadn’t he.

“Lloyd said he wants to see you.”

Zane makes a sound in the back of his throat, bitter and hollow. Pixal’s eyes turn sad, and Zane feels a pang in his chest.

“He really does, you know,” she says, quietly. “We all do.”

Zane tilts his head at her. “You do see me,” he says. “I’m here right now, aren’t I?”

Pixal meets his gaze head-on, her green eyes glimmering in the dim light. “Are you?”

Zane is forced to look away. His eyes find his hands instead, where they’re laced tightly together in his lap. The tremors have lessened from earlier, but they’re still there. Still a reminder, of what he’s done with these hands.

“You’re hiding,” Pixal says. Her words are not an accusation, but they feel like one nonetheless. “From what?”

Zane blinks, long and hard. “Don’t you know?” he finally exhales, the words heavy. “You heard what I did.”

Pixal stiffens. “Zane,” she says, pained. “Do you remember after we met, when I attacked you? When Cryptor and the Overlord had me under their control? You did not blame me for that.”

Zane shakes his head. “This is different.” His hands are rattling now. “You did not — you didn’t see, Pixal. You didn’t see what I did.”

Pixal is quiet for a moment, then she speaks. “But they did.”

Zane buries his face in his hands. “I don’t understand,” he whispers. “They don’t understand.”

Pixal huffs a breath out, the sound pained. “I wish I knew how to help you,” she says, her voice miserable.

It tugs on something in Zane’s chest, and he finds himself leaning against her shoulder, taking what comfort he dares let himself have from her.

“You do help,” he tells her, quietly. “You help more than you’ll ever know.”

Pixal rests her head atop of his, humming quietly in reply.

She does not reach for his hands. Zane cannot help but feel grateful for that.

_______________________________________________________________________

Lloyd is fine, despite his best efforts to free himself from his family’s worrying eyes too early. There are a very loud few moments where Pixal mentions something about shaving part of his head to observe the damage, at which Lloyd balks violently, declaring that the first person to even come close to his head with a razor will receive an energy sphere to the face.

Having received one of those himself recently, Zane has no desire to try him.

Kai takes his side, and Lloyd ends up escaping with all his hair intact, though he is under strict orders not to push himself. He celebrates this by throwing himself back into training with the rest of them, determined not to fall into past habits.

“I was thinking of an obstacle course,” Lloyd rolls his eyes at Nya’s concerned protests. “Simple and easy, no sparring or anything.”

“Plenty of chances to fall, though,” Cole mutters. He receives several looks of pointed concern at that, and immediately sputters. “I meant — I meant for like, Lloyd’s head, not — guys, I’m fine, that wasn’t — what I meant.”

No one looks convinced, and Jay doesn’t let go of his hold on Cole’s arm.

“A low obstacle course,” Lloyd amends. The others shrug in agreement, which Lloyd takes as the most enthusiasm he’s going to get, and he starts lining up. The other follow suit, and Zane is moving as well until Cole suddenly turns, eyeing him in concern.

“You sure you’re up for this?”

Zane nods shortly, fisting his hands in the side of his gi to stop the tremors. Of course he is. There is no reason for his hands to be shaking — not for simple training, the kind he’s done a hundred, a thousand times. The sun is bright where it rests in the clear sky, and even the wind that rustles around them is warm.

He is safe here. They are safe here.

Zane tells himself this as he steps alongside his brothers, pulling the hood of his gi down as they do.

This is a mistake.

The fabric weighs close and heavy against his face, tight and constricting, and all at once Zane’s vision goes white and he’s gone. The air is frigid and Vex’s voice is clanging through his empty head like a broken bell, his chest is numb and the panicked breathes he draws in freeze and burn. Zane claws frantically at the mask, choking back a scream as it snags and catches, trapping him in a world of white and no color, no warmth, of unfeeling nothing—

“Zane!”

There’s a violent tug and the mask tears, ripping away from his face like paper. Zane falls forward, bracing himself on his hands as he gasps, breaths shuddering in relief as the pressure lifts, his vision clears, and the air is warm again.

The comforting weight of a hand lands on his back, and Zane’s very being cries out for it until he manages to yank himself away.

“N-no,” he stammers, his voice halting like a broken record. “No, you cannot— you shouldn’t—“

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” someone murmurs from behind him. “It’s fine, it’s—“

“You’re here.” A new voice speaks up, this one just in front of him. “You’re free, you’re you. He doesn’t have you, Zane.”

Zane gasps out a shuddery, breathless sob before pulling himself together enough to open his eyes, staring blearily at the terrified faces of his team where they’re crouched around him. Jay is at his back, his hand still hovering mid-reach for him, and Kai’s eyes are wide where Cole holds a cautionary hand in front of him. Nya is on his left, her face pale as her brother’s, and Lloyd kneels beside him, his eyes wide and so terribly, painfully empathetic. Zane’s eyes drift, and he sees his hood still clutched in Lloyd’s white-knuckled fingers, torn from the strength of his pull.

“It’s okay,” Lloyd repeats, and he tries to smile at him, some offer of reassurance. “Hey, you’re good, we got you.”

Zane shakes his head, rocking back on his heels and closing his eyes. Lloyd’s words echo through his head, again and again.

He doesn’t have you.

He wants to scream.

Instead, he exhales, and calmly tells them, “I think I may be sick.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Zane is a fool, because he believes that will be the end of it, for some reason. He is a fool, for thinking his team will let him get way with shaking hands and drawing further and further into himself.

But he had, for a moment, thought they were smart.

Lloyd, as usual, tends to like proving people wrong.

“Zane, come on, you gotta stop hiding away.”

Zane goes rigid. He’d been careful when he’d slipped out of the monastery, the rest of his family preoccupied enough with Cole’s video game that he’d thought he could leave unnoticed.

He hadn’t even made it down the first few steps. Disappointing.

“I am not…hiding away,” he says, stiffly. “I just…needed some air.”

There. A perfect excuse, one Lloyd uses himself quite often. If he’s wise, he’ll let it go.

But then Zane hears his footsteps draw closer, and the trembling in his hands picks up. Of course Lloyd will follow him. It’s what got him into trouble in the first place.

“Zane…” Lloyd sighs, sounding tired. “I know it’s…it’s not easy. It can’t be. But we — we want to help, Zane. You just gotta let us.”

Zane shakes his head. “You shouldn’t,” he says, bleakly. “You shouldn’t want to.”

Lloyd makes an unhappy sound in his throat. “Of course we do, Zane,” he insists. “We’re your family. And what happened there — everything, that was Vex. Not you, Zane.”

Zane closes his eyes tight. He’s heard this, again and again and again, from Cole and Kai and Jay and Nya. Always blaming Vex, always excusing Zane.

And now Lloyd is here, with the same words, and—

Lloyd bruised and bled and traveled a wasteland to save him, and Zane repaid him by nearly freezing him solid. He repaid him with cold and cruelty, and nearly let another end him, right in front of his eyes. Zane stood by while Vex held a spear to his brother’s throat and he almost did nothing.

There are no excuses for that.

“You do not understand,” Zane repeats, his voice thin. “You can’t, Lloyd, so please stop—“

“No!” Lloyd’s expression is stubborn as he interrupts him, his eyes hot. “I don’t understand, you’re right, but I’m the closest you’re going to get!” Lloyd shakes his head. “You think I don’t know what guilt feels like? You think I don’t know what it’s like to lose yourself?"

Zane’s teeth grind. “It is not the same, Lloyd, and you know it.”

“Maybe not, but I know what you’re doing,” Lloyd says, refusing to back down. “I know you’re bottling it up, Zane, and you have to stop. You’ve got to open up to us, Zane, you’re destroying yourself.”

“It is better than destroying you!”

“You wouldn’t!” Lloyd retorts fiercely. “You didn’t before, and you won’t now!”

Zane’s words strangle on the tip of his tongue, and Lloyd steps forward, moving closer. “Zane, you’re my brother,” he says, his words painfully earnest. “I trust you.”

Too close, he’s coming too close. Distress is building in Zane’s chest, blurring his vision and choking him. His hands are shaking hard enough to rattle, misting cold flowing from the edges of his fingers. Lloyd either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, only stepping closer.

Zane lifts his hand to stop him, to push him back, away from him before he can get too close—

When he realizes with a swoop of horror that ice has formed along his fingers, spreading over his hands and misting out, reaching closer and closer toward Lloyd, and Zane has no time to cry a warning before—

Searing flame erupts in front of him, killing the spreading ice in a wave of heat and sending him stumbling away. Lloyd gives a startled cry of panic from behind the wall of fire that blazes between them, and Zane flinches back, cowering.

“Stop.”

Kai stares at him, his face white, flames dancing from his hands where his arm is still outstretched, calling the fire between them. His eyes are blown wide — in terror or panic or anger, Zane cannot tell.

“Stop,” Kai repeats, his voice shaky. “You can’t — no more, not him, you—“

Haunted. Kai’s eyes are haunted, burning from the inside out. Zane’s expression fractures as his heart does, and Kai suddenly blinks rapidly, the fire from his hands dying, turning to smoke that quickly drifts away.

They stand there, Kai and Zane facing each other and Lloyd on the ground, his hands pressed against his eyes tightly, as if still shielding from the light. No one meets the others’ eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Zane whispers.

Kai shakes his head. “This isn’t working,” he says, his voice hollow. It sounds final.

There is silence for another moment, then—

Lloyd gives a sharp intake of breath. “Don’t.”

Their heads swivel toward him. Lloyd is shaking his head, looking close to tears. “Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t.”

Kai looks at Zane, then back to Lloyd, frowning. “Lloyd, what—?”

Lloyd’s hands are shaking now too, terrible tremors that spread to his shoulders and don’t stop, rattling him like he shivered in the cold of the Never Realm. “Don’t leave,” he croaks, his eyes reddening at the edges, slowly welling up. “Please don’t leave. Not again.”

Kai stares at him in blank confusion, before the look turns to horror.

“Oh, Lloyd, no—“

“—not again, please don’t—“

“No, no, that’s not what’s happening, I promise—“

Kai is on the ground with Lloyd now, frantically reassuring him, leaving Zane forgotten for the moment. It is for the best, because it gives Zane the chance to stumble back, to turn, and to run.

This, this is why, a voice cries in his head, crashing against his skull. You hurt and you hurt and they ignore it. How long before you hurt too badly? How long before you go too far again?

Tears burn at the edges of his eyes, hotter than the fire Kai had called up.

Kai had called up fire, against him.

Zane shakes his head, choking out a bitter laugh. Of course he had. Kai has always been one to see the clearest. He knows, he must know, how dangerous Zane is, how unforgivable he is, how—

He’d almost hurt Lloyd. Again.

Zane’s steps falter then fumble, and his foot catches against a step before sending him tumbling to the ground, his hands just catching himself in the dirt before he wipes out completely.

He stays like that, his arms trembling where they’re planted in the earth before him, his breath coming in harsh gasps. He digs his fingers into the dirt, watching the grassroots and dark silt stain around his fingers. The frosting ice has long faded, but Zane can still feel it, still shudders from the chill.

Dirt shifts against the edge of his sleeve, and Zane’s stomach turns. The fabric is white, pure and untouched as it always is, and he hates it. He hates the color, he hates it, he hates that it is pure white and not drenched in red, dyed in blood that should be staining his hands—

Remember when I threw his reds in with your whites? And all your clothes turned pink, and you had to dress up as the pink ninja? Remember?

He remembers, oh, he remembers, and that is the problem. He remembers every frightened face, every desperate plea for mercy, every terrified scream — all at his hands. All his fault, all his fault, all his—

The earth between Zane’s fingers freezes solid as colors burst beneath his eyelids, and for a second he thinks he might explode, shattering into pieces like he did in the Overlord’s grasp, except this time it will be at the cause of his own awful mistakes—

A hand settles on his shoulder, gentle but grounding, melting the ice away before Zane can accidentally hurt him.

And like that, every last ounce of energy rushes from Zane’s chest, the ice between his fingers splintering and dissolving as he goes limp, still kneeling in the dirt.

“Kai,” he rasps.

“Hey, bud.”

Kai’s voice is raw, almost as if he’s crying, or wants to. He doesn’t say anything else, just sits there with his hand on Zane’s back until he finally sits up, brushing his hands across his eyes and exhaling shakily.

Kai remains by his side, patient.

Zane finally swallows, finding what little courage he has. “Is Lloyd…”

“He’s fine,” Kai says. He hangs his head, looking pained. “He’s just — I kind of…gave him reason to be scared. The last time you, um…” Kai trails off, then shudders. “Anyways, he was — I know you weren’t going to hurt him. I know you didn’t mean to. I just—“

“I am glad you did,” Zane says, quietly.

“But I shouldn’t have,” Kai says, fiercely. “I could’ve hurt you, I overreacted and I could’ve—“

He bites himself off, arms crossing tightly in his lap.

“Lloyd said—“ Kai’s breath hitches. “He told me — he wanted me to tell you—“ He shakes his head, exhaling on a shaky breath that sounds like he either wants to laugh or cry. “He told me to welcome you to the almost-killed-him-over-a-staff club.”

Zane inhales sharply, his eyes snapping up to Kai’s. Lloyd is never so direct, and he never brings up something he knows will hurt Kai. Not unless they have driven him to it.

“It wasn’t — that’s not the same,” he croaks.

“Yeah,” Kai laughs, bitterly. “Because you didn’t have your memories. You didn’t know.”

“But I did,” Zane hisses. “I did, Kai, I knew better. But I still — the people, Kai, there were so many people—“

“We saved them, though,” Kai insists. “Zane, you freed them—“

“How many?!” Zane cries, standing abruptly. “How many, Kai? How many did I free after years of suffering, of years of living without their loved ones? And how many never got the chance to?”

Kai stares at him, his eyes wide. “Zane—“

Zane staggers back, his breath coming in harsh pants as he stares at his hands. They’re shaking so badly he can hardly see them, or perhaps his entire body is shaking now, rattling itself into disrepair.

“I hurt them, Kai,” he chokes out. “I hurt them, and I hurt you. You came for me, and I hurt you, because I listened to him.”

Kai pushes himself to his feet, his hands wavering hesitantly as he steps toward him. “Zane, you can’t…”

Fire suddenly burns hot in Zane’s gut, and his eyes sting.

“I wish you’d burned him,” he suddenly spits, his voice so vicious it scrapes through his throat. “I wish you’d killed him.”

Kai’s expression makes it clear that Zane doesn’t need to say the name. His fists ball up, and he continues. “I wish—“

Zane grinds his hands against his eyes, his breath catching.

He wishes, he wishes — he can wish forever, but none of that will undo what he’s done.

Kai lays a hand on his, trapping his trembling one in a low warmth.

“I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner,” he whispers, his voice broken. “I’m so sorry, Zane."

“It is not your—“

Zane can no longer speak. Kai’s warmth is too much against the icy shards of his heart, and somewhere in him a dam breaks, flooding out with an emotion so intense Zane crumbles to the ground.

Kai is quick to follow, holding him as he sobs, agony splintering against his chest like cracking ice.

“It wasn’t you, Zane, it wasn’t—“

“My hands, Kai, they were my hands.”

Kai is quiet for a beat, and his arms tighten further, his warmth almost searing where he clutches him, as if holding Zane together with sheer force of will.

“I know, Zane,” Kai’s voice is thick, water-logged and miserable. “I know.”

_______________________________________________________________________

They stay out there for hours, only returning when the sun has finally set completely, casting the mountain in darkness. The others are waiting for them in the doorway, and Zane nearly falters before Kai pulls him forward.

Lloyd is the first to greet them, his eyes soft as he takes Zane’s hand without hesitation, squeezing it tightly.

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” he says, and this time, Zane hears the resolution in his voice. It is an assurance on Lloyd’s part, a promise from him.

Zane’s fingers squeeze back, and Lloyd gives him a watery smile before moving to Kai. He wavers for a moment, hesitating until Kai pulls him in. Lloyd returns the hug fiercely.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice heartbroken against Kai’s gi. “I shouldn’t have—“

“No,” Kai says. “You should have.”

Nya steps past her brothers to reach for Zane next. He flinches back at first, but she presses onward, grasping his hands with her own. With a flicker of surprise, he feels a similar tremor running through her hands, as if she’s being shaken from the inside out.

She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes are understanding.

“You don’t have to be okay,” Jay suddenly says, materializing at his side. “We don’t expect you to, you know.”

Zane swallows thickly. He looks up, meeting Cole’s dark eyes with his own watering ones.

“We lost you once,” Cole says, his voice hollow. “We’re not going to again. And whatever you’ve done, whatever — whatever you need to do, we’re going to be there. You can’t stop us, either.”

His lips quirk up in a pained smile. “You should know better by now.”

And Zane shouldn’t, because Cole’s arms are still scarred from the cold, from his cold — but Cole pulls him in tightly and Zane clings back, burying his face in his brother’s chest.

When he finally pulls back, Cole’s eyes are red, and he can spot Pixal at his shoulder, her lips pulled into a small, soft kind of smile.

They shoulder him back into the monastery, tugging him from the darkness outside into the light. Lloyd falls in next to him as they head inside, looking a little guilty.

Zane cannot imagine what on earth for, but Lloyd speaks up before he can question him.

“Earlier, when we were…talking, I didn’t mean to talk about me,” he says, slowly. “I, um…I wanted to talk with you, about you, but also…also about my father.”

Zane pauses, and he looks down at his hands.

“I would like that,” he says, quietly.

The smile Lloyd gives him is small, but it is noticeably genuine.

______________________________________________________________________

“You cannot change the past, Zane, no matter how much you wish to.”

Sensei’s eyes are distant where he sits across the table from him, but they are somehow understanding. He stirs at his tea absently, sighting wearily. “That is a power long beyond our reach, and pointless to meddle with.”

“I understand, Sensei.” Zane’s eyes turn downwards, and then Sensei Wu continues.

“But you can protect what you have now,” he says, gently. “And you can protect those who need your help in the future.”

Zane stares at him for a beat, then turns his gaze to the window, where he knows his family is likely eavesdropping again.

“Will it ever be enough?” he whispers, afraid of the answer.

Sensei Wu’s head dips. “I will not pass judgement on you, Zane,” he says. “I have done enough myself in my own life.”

Zane nods, disappointed, but not entirely unsurprised.

“But,” he continues, and his eyes are lighter. “I do know that you have a good heart, Zane. And I know that whatever darkness has touched it will not linger for long.”

Zane stares at his hands, gloved in the white of his uniform.

“You cannot change the past,” Sensei repeats. “But you’ve been given a future. Don’t waste it, Zane.”

Zane’s hands clench once, then twice. He thinks of snow, for snowmen and sledding.

Twice now, he’s been given a second chance.

He won’t waste it. He won’t.

_______________________________________________________________________

A month after their return from the Never Realm finds the six of them abandoning their training once again, though this time it is with permission.

Instead of resting at the monastery, they pack their bags and set out on foot, Cole leading the way as they pick a path up the nearby mountain. It is not a training hike, or a desperate hike — it is slow and ambling and they trip more often than not, stumbling over each other or kicking each others’ legs out, pausing often to peer over the clifftops and duck under tiny waterfalls.

They reach the top by sundown, sweaty and disheveled and hair askew, but they’re lighter and happier than Zane’s seen in a while, and he himself does not feel so terribly heavy for once.

They toss sticks and pine straw and whatever they’ve collected on the way up into a haphazard pile as it gets dark, and Kai brings up a bonfire bright enough to illuminate all their faces.

Then Nya draws the wrapped object from her bag, and the mood turns somber.

Lloyd’s eyes shadow as the staff, wrapped and covered firmly in old bedsheets, is passed from Nya’s hands to Kai’s. Jay’s eyes flit away, and Cole looks down at the fire. Zane’s hands tremble, but Lloyd takes one and Jay takes the other, and the restlessness in his heart quiets.

“All due respect to your grandfather, Lloyd,” Kai begins, with an air of dignity as he holds the staff aloft. “But this was an awful idea.”

Lloyd ducks his head, breathing a laugh. Kai grins, meets Zane eyes, then drops the staff into the fire, the flames burning stronger as it catches.

They know full well that Lloyd splintered it a while ago, stripped it of his grandfather’s power with his uncle’s aid, but Kai claims this is therapeutic.

They all watch in silence as the scroll crumples and crackles under the heat of Kai’s fire, curling up and blackening at the edges, until the entire thing is consumed in bright flame, hot tongues of heat erasing the sigils from existence as the paper turns to ash.

“Good riddance,” Cole mutters.

“Seriously,” Jay echoes. “What a headache.”

His eyes suddenly brighten, and Nya shoots him a look. Jay ignores her, continuing, “A literal headache, get it? ‘Cause your head burst into flame—“

Cole elbows him in the side, but the others are snickering now as well, and even Zane feels a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Sensei won’t be mad, will he?” Nya finally questions, when the laughter has died down.

Lloyd simply shrugs. He still hasn’t let go of Zane’s hand. “I don’t think so,” he says. “And even if he does — this was our decision. He can take it up with all of us.”

“We speak as one,” Kai says, his eyes bright with the light from the fire, slipping his hand into Lloyd’s, his other reaching for Nya’s.

“As one,” Cole echoes quietly, taking Nya’s outstretched hand and closing the circle as he grabs for Jay’s, leaving the six of them in a lopsided, connected circle of battered hands.

The fire snaps and crackles in the middle of them, the last remnants of the scroll turning to ash, and Zane exhales, as if letting out some breath he’s been holding for ages.

His hands are steady.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #ns11 #ninjago spoilers #zane julien #lloyd garmadon #kai smith #cole brookstone #jay walker #nya smith #my fic #@ninjawhoa i owe u my life for helping with the medical side #it is now significantly less butchered and i love u

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