Chapter Text
“Um…so, well…the thing is…uh, so…well, it’s…” Lloyd continues his string of filler words for about a minute before Jay’s blank expression morphs into an annoyed glare.
“Lloyd. What do you want?” Jay interrupts.
Lloyd looks at him for a long moment and sighs, dragging his hands down his face. “Okay. So…so remember the Tomorrow’s Tea?”
“Yes, I remember the Tomorrow’s Tea,” Jay says. “What about it?”
“Well, ever since I got, uh, older…” Lloyd clears his throat. “I’ve felt sorta…younger.”
Jay cocks his head slightly, wondering where this is going.
“So, I…I know it’s not like, possible for classifications to change,” Lloyd says, “But…it actually…might…be?”
Jay blinks. “Wait…are you saying…” his jaw drops slightly. “Are you saying you’re a little?”
“Yes,” says Lloyd slowly. “We think.”
“‘We?’”
“Um. Cole knows. Nobody else does yet, though. Just you and Cole so far. But that’s not…that’s not actually what I wanted to talk to you about. That was just sort of a…” he waves his hand dismissively. “A necessary backstory.”
Jay stares at him. “You’re telling me you’re the first person in the history of Ninjago whose classification has ever changed and that’s not your main point?”
“Yes!” Lloyd tells him, slightly annoyed. “That’s not the main point! My main point is, I’ve…” he sighs, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “I’ve been on, an, um, online forum. For…Littles who can’t be out.”
Jay’s stomach drops. He doesn’t say anything.
“And I was talking to this other Little on there who just…he reminds me a whole lot of you, Jay.”
Jay swallows thickly and looks down. “Oh yeah?” he says weakly. God, the thought that he’s been confiding in one of his teammates…
Should not feel this scary, should it?
Lloyd doesn’t press any further, which is, somehow, worse. He sits down next to Jay on the bed and waits, patiently, for Jay to talk. Jay wraps his arms around his middle and thinks, for the thousandth time, that his life is totally ruined. “You’re starfarer 05, aren’t you?” he whispers.
“Yeah,” Lloyd breathes. “Birdie 109?”
“Yup.” Jay rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. No point trying to deny it. His biggest secret’s already been revealed, he supposes it doesn’t really make that much of a difference. But… he freezes. “Hold on. You said, um…you said you had a Caregiver. That would be…Cole, right?”
“Oh.” Lloyd tenses. Danget, he hadn’t thought about how Jay would figure that out. “Um, yeah. Cole’s my Caregiver.”
“But…” Jay says in a very tiny, barely audible voice, “Cole’s my Caregiver.”
“Well…Caregivers can have two Littles,” Lloyd says hesitantly. “It’s okay.”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t…” Jay clears his throat. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not actually gonna be his Little or anything.” Lloyd looks at Jay sadly. He’s got dark circles under his eyes. A bit more pronounced than usual, but they’ve always been there. He looks so tired.
“What do you mean you’re not going to be his Little? You’ve got official paperwork saying you are.”
“I don’t need it!” Jay snaps, so loudly and suddenly he startles Lloyd. “I don’t need any of it! I don’t need the stupid sippy cups or the dumb stuffed animals or the, the flipping picture books and I don’t need to be read to and I don’t need to be taken care of and I don’t need anyone! I’ve managed fine on my own so far, an-”
He stops abruptly.
“Um. Lloyd?”
Lloyd hasn’t been Little since before the hospital. He’s been so stressed out and worried and his friend is not taking care of himself and he doesn’t know how to help, and…
“Oh. Uh, hey…Lloyd, it’s…it’s okay, you…”
Lloyd sobs, shaking his head. “No!” he cries. “Not okay!”
“I…” Jay hesitates, unsure of what to do. “Do you, um…want me to get Cole?”
Lloyd nods and rests his forehead against his knees.
Jay leaves his room, ignores the way Kai and Zane pretend to not be staring at him, and approaches Cole. “Cole,” he says quietly. “Um. Lloyd needs you.”
Cole’s head snaps up from the book he’d been reading (a book on Littlespace-related trauma, Jay can’t help but notice), eyes flashing with worry—Lloyd slipped? And Jay knows? Obviously if Lloyd hadn’t been able to come get Cole himself and let him know he needed to be Little, he had slipped unexpectedly and is probably really upset…
Cole closes the door behind them, wasting no time in gathering Lloyd in his arms and cradling him close to his chest. “Hey, hey,” he murmurs. “What’s got you so upset, huh?”
Jay can’t bring himself to move. He stands there staring at the two of them, at the way Cole’s holding Lloyd and comforting him and being so gentle. A strange longing swims in the middle of his chest.
“Jay’s s-so mean to him-...to himself!” Lloyd cries. “Hurts and doesn’t…doesn’t take…care of, care of himself a-and I don’ know…how to make h-him be nice, an…”
This is a really awkward conversation to be having right in front of Jay, Cole knows, as he briefly looks up at Jay standing there watching them before turning back to Lloyd and thumbing his blonde bangs out of his eyes. “It’s gonna be alright, kiddo,” Cole promises gently. “I know it’s so hard when someone we love doesn’t love themselves, but…” he hesitates, aware that Jay is listening to every word he’s saying. “All we can do right now is make sure he knows how much we love him. And I’m gonna try my best to make sure Jay gets taken care of from now on, okay?”
Jay should be angry at that.
But he can’t bring himself to be.
Lloyd pulls away from Cole and reaches his arms out towards Jay in an indication he wants Jay to come and hug him now.
Jay’s face flushes. “Um.” Awkwardly, he complies, and Lloyd squeezes him tightly.
“Love you, Jay,” Lloyd murmurs.
“I love you too,” Jay says around the lump in his throat. When Lloyd lets go he leans back against Cole. Jay leans back against the cold hard wall and briefly meets eyes with Cole before averting them again.
Cole looks so sad. He doesn’t like making Cole sad.
But it’s better than making his dad angry.
So as much as he wants to let go, to just give in and let himself cry and let himself slip and let Cole take care of him, he doesn’t. He won’t. Jay Gordon does not need anyone to take care of him.
They didn’t even know there was a word for it back then, when they were by themselves.
Although Kai was the big brother, sometimes they’d have to swap roles and Nya would be his big sister—she’d run the shop, and fix him meals and scold him when he got too close to the furnace and tuck him into bed. It just felt natural. They vaguely knew what that was about.
But then it happened the opposite way. It was only a very subtle difference at first.
“I don’t think you should help me in the shop today,” Kai would say.
Which really annoyed Nya, but she knew he was right. There were days when there was just something that felt a little different. Not off, not wrong, just different.
She grew up on normal days. On different days it was like she reverted, like she was still only nine or ten and liked the same things she liked when she was nine or ten despite having grown out of them.
“Isn’t this what happens to you?” she’d said once, on one of the different days. “Don’t you just become a kid again for a while sometimes?”
“I don’t know,” Kai had shrugged. “I’ve thought about that before, but I get younger than you do. And isn’t it weird that we take turns being younger and taking care of each other? I don’t think that’s how it usually works.”
“Yeah, well, it works for us,” Nya had replied. “Guess it doesn’t really matter.”
It wasn’t until years later, after Kai had become a ninja, when Nya had come across an article on switches, that they actually really found out their classifications. “Look!” she’d said excitedly, shoving the psychology magazine in Kai’s face. “Look, it’s us! There’s a word for it!”
It was a different day. She’d only read the first few paragraphs. Kai read the whole thing and set it down slowly. Right. Of course it was controversial. Of course a lot of people didn’t think it was a valid classification and that nobody with a Little headspace could ever be trusted to take care of another Little.
He explained this bluntly. Nya’s face fell. “Oh. Well. That’s…okay,” she’d said. “It…it works for us, so it doesn’t matter what they think.”
“Of course,” Kai had said gently. “It works for us. It always has.”
Only it didn’t…maybe it didn’t have to be just the two of them anymore, and…maybe, deep down, they were both sick of keeping it a secret, like it was something to be ashamed of.
Nya suddenly chucks a screwdriver across the room, frustrated with whatever she was working on, and Kai sighs. Besides, different days are a little more complicated now that they have four roommates.