Chapter Text
The first night after they’ve gotten Lloyd back from Harumi’s grasp. The Green Ninja wakes up in the dark. Alone. With something wrapped around him (that thing is actually a blanket but, in his panic, he doesn’t realise that).
No no no! He had gotten away.
Or had he?
Whatever that is wrapped around him becomes hard and lumpy, digging into him…a feeling that he was eerily familiar with, vengestone chains.
Harumi — Her — laugh echoed around the room, smothering him.
Tears pool in the corner of his eyes and began to splash onto his cheeks as his breath catches in the lump in his throat.
A whine tore itself free as the sound of voices — talking? — made it to his ears.
Were they talking to him or about him?
First Master, he hates these days when She would stick him with a syringe full of that green liquid and the cotton candy haze with its painful hallucinations that followed.
With the cotton clogging his brain, he was unable to tell if his family standing in front of him was real or not.
When they said that they were rescuing him, only for the cold to steal them away before he could take their hand. It would give him a false taste of freedom before stealing it away from him.
Leaving him all alone. Again.
Something’s touching him.
Something is touching him.
Someone is touching him.
Lloyd blinks and the Council chambers morph into achingly familiar wooden walls — he hadn’t even noticed the prick of the syringe this time — and most painfully, Kai.
His heart twists in his chest. Oh, how he wishes for this to be real, just this once.
“—oyd. Lloyd, you’re alright,” the Fire Master says. “You’re safe. We got you away from Harumi,” not-Kai tells him.
This isn’t anything new, Kai has said the same thing what must be now dozens of times before, they all have.
Just this time, he must have finally gotten used to the cotton because he can’t feel it clogging up his brain.
But the cold doesn’t steal Kai away, his big brother is still in front of him.
“If I was a hallucination, you wouldn’t be able to feel this,” not-Kai (?) continues before reaching out towards him like he was intending to touch him.
Then, to Lloyd’s utter surprise (shock), he felt something actually touching his arm. That had never happened before.
The tiniest, faintest, flicker of hope makes itself known to him. Maybe his wish will be granted this time.
He wouldn’t be able to handle it, if this is all just another one of Her games.
At the prospect of this actually being real, the terrified tears turn into relieved sobs. Before he can register that he’s no longer lying awkwardly, he’s being pulled into a hug.
Please, please, let this be real.
The flicker of hope is steadily growing as he can feel the unnatural heat that Kai radiates. It’s impossible to replicate.
Or it was supposed to be.
“I’m real, Lloyd,”
That confirms it for him — even despite the voice (that sounds suspiciously like Hers ) trying to tell him that it’s not, trying to grow the doubt that has been reduced to a speck — this is real. He’s free.
“Kai,” his voice is still hoarse from misuse and wavers from emotion but his relief and delight are clear. He doesn't let go
He blinks again and the surroundings start to blossom into awareness like some kind of painting. They’re in his room at the Monastery of Spinjitzu.
The clock on the far wall reads 4:30 AM. A pang of guilt goes through him at that. He must have woken Kai up.
“D-did I wake you?” Lloyd asks, pulling back.
The other Elemental shakes his head. “No, I was already awake,” he says.
It’s a lie. Had it been a different situation he might have disputed it but he can’t find it in him to do that now.
“Oh,” he hears himself saying, playing with a loose string on his gray pyjamas.
“Don’t worry about it, it happens all the time,” Kai tells him. It’s supposed to reassure him, it doesn't quite succeed.
Memories make themselves known to him; of countless times in the past when he or on the not-so-rare-occasion that the rest of them had been woken up by another.
The Fire Master’s voice brings him back out of memory lane.
“Do you want to try to go back to sleep?” he doesn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence before Lloyd shakes his head. No .
Going back to sleep sounds like a terrible idea right now, he knows exactly what is waiting for him once he shuts his eyes.
“Okay. It’s too early to start on breakfast but we could go watch a movie?”
That gets a very definite nod. The two of them head out of Lloyd’s room towards the living room where the tv is.
By the time the others start making their way one by one towards the kitchen an hour later, they’re about halfway through My Neighbour Totoro (which Lloyd had been horrified to learn that Kai had never seen before).