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Lloyd doesn’t understand it. Even after a year. Why do the others still want to be friends with him, even though they know who he is?
It’s been a year, and except for the relatively rocky start, it’s been fine. He has friends.
It makes him worry that one day they’re going to tell him that it was all a lie and that they actually hate him. So, yeah, he’s been on tenterhooks all week and it hasn’t done any good for his anxiety.
Today was Friday which meant that the whole team was watching a movie together as ‘team building’. All six of them were clustered together on or near the old, worn sofa in the corner of the warehouse/ninja headquarters.
Then Lloyd suddenly blurted out “Why?”
That made the entire group screech to a halt.
“Why are you all still friends with me?” he elaborated. “Why don’t you hate me, like everyone else?”
Someone pauses the movie and someone else flicks the lights back on. He hates the concern that shines in the eyes of each of them.
“Lloyd, no,” Nya says.
She looks horrified, at what? Him? He hopes not.
“We don’t hate you,” Jay tells him.
“But I’m the son of Garmadon; you know, the guy who has been terrorizing this city for seven years?”
Lloyd’s disbelief is a kick to the gut and apparently, it’s a shared feeling.
Hadn’t they gone over this already? It must not have stuck with the blond.
“And?” It’s Kai who speaks next. “Lloyd, do you remember what we said a year ago? Back when Master Wu first recruited the rest of us?” he ask
He shook his head.
Well, that explains a lot.
“‘We don’t care whose son you are’” Cole restated the words that they had said to the blond a year ago.
“‘We want to be friends with you , Lloyd, the comics nerd and our friend, not Lloyd, the son of Garmadon’,” Nya said what she had a year ago.
He’s bluescreening.
What? When did they say that? He doesn’t remember it — no, he does.
Vague, blurry memories from a year ago make themselves known to him.
“Oh…” he probably looks stupid with his mouth hanging open like this. Oh well.
“Y-you really mean that?” Lloyd’s braced himself for the blow of rejection, even though it seemed less likely now (unfortunately past experiences had taught him it was still possible).
“Yes,” the others chorused.
He searched all their eyes for a hint of doubt, of hatred, or even of annoyance at him. Instead, he found only conviction and earnest belief in what they had said.
Maybe this was true, that they actually did want to stay friends with him.
He can let himself hope, just this once, can’t he?
Now that it’s all come to pass and their rejection never came, the tension can drain out of him. It leaves him more exhausted than he had expected.
(The others pick up on that)
The next few minutes passed in a blur. He’s not really sure when they all moved from where they had been sitting to watch the movie earlier, to sort-of dogpile on him.
They had all noticed how tense Lloyd had become after he had asked if they really meant what they had said. They had also all seen how it had drained out of him and how exhausted it had left him.
As the blond’s honorary older brother, Kai decided quickly that he can’t leave Lloyd like this. A quick, silent conversation undertaken solely through their eyes with Nya confirmed that she agreed.
He and Nya got up from their previous spots to come sit directly beside Lloyd, pulling him into a hug. The blond seemed to be spacing out, he hadn’t reacted to the siblings hugging him.
It took a minute but the rest of the group got what they were doing and joined in. Soon enough, there was a dogpile-esque group hug taking place.