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Lloyd felt a little bit cornered.

Yesterday was…hard. Wu had started bullying them all into getting back into training (sans Cole who was still fucked up from the fall from the Bounty) and Lloyd had designated today for the team to take it easy. The monastery was also mercifully quiet and he had been looking forward to the fresh box of marshmallow cereal Cole and Jay hadn’t stuck their dirty little hands into already.

But it appears that the rest of his family had other plans.

Kai and Nya had come in as he sat down and, while he mourned his chance to scroll mindlessly through his phone as he ate, Lloyd was more than happy to let his siblings sit with him. 

Yeah, well, he wasn’t too happy with that decision anymore. Why had he agreed to be their brother in the first place? Seemed fake.

“What’s up?” he asked, almost naively, as if this was just a normal morning and not one where his entire family decided to backstab him in the most traitorous way. “You both look nervous.” It was true, the Smith siblings looked very shifty. It didn’t suit them. Kai kept fiddling with the various rings on his fingers or reaching back to tug on the ends of his hair. Nya was a bit more subtle, stretching her calloused hands out on the table and tip-tapping her foot underneath the table. Lloyd squinted at them and shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Shpi’ i’ ou’ a’ready.” Kai breathed out a large gust of air and Nya squared her shoulders slightly.

“We wanted to talk to you,” Kai started slowly, as if talking to a wild animal. Lloyd raised an eyebrow and swallowed his bite of food.

“Well, you are succeeding in that, you certainly are talking.” When neither sibling reached over to swipe at his head for his snarkiness, Lloyd bit the inside of his cheek nervously. “What did you want to talk about?”  he asked, his voice a little more serious. Nya opened her mouth before closing it and looking at her brother. Kai just shrugged and looked away; Lloyd looked down at his cereal and thought maybe he wasn’t as hungry as he thought.

“We know that- you haven’t had the best time in terms of school,” Nya started and Lloyd rubbed his fingers against the grain of the wooden dining table.

“Oookay? I am aware that Darkley’s was shit,” Lloyd said. “You guys are kinda freaking me out, can you just get to the point?”

“We want you to try going back to school,” Kai said all at once and Nya smacked him. “What! This was getting tedious!”

“We all agreed we were gonna try to do this slowly,” she hissed at him. Kai scoffed and Lloyd felt a little bit like his mind was floating out of the room.

“Then they shouldn’t have asked us to do this. Cole is good with breaking it gently, not us.” Nya rolled her eyes, crossing her arms in annoyance. She turned her attention back to Lloyd.

“Yes, what dumbass said-”

“I fucking raised you-” she completed ignored Kai and kept going.

“Wu made a point that you haven’t really-” she paused, as if she was trying to get the right words to come to mind, “that you haven’t really had a normal childhood and now that the Oni are gone, maybe we should try again.” Lloyd raised both eyebrows and laughed humorlessly.

“Oh, so after the Great Devourer, the Overlord, Chen, Morro, fucking Harumi and my dad, now I get to have a normal childhood.” He snorted and shook his head. “No way.” Lloyd stood up from the bench and picked up his bowl. “Tell my uncle thanks, but no thanks.”

“Wait, come on, kid,” Kai interjected, “think about it, you’d go back to school on a trial basis, meet people your own age who aren’t all- y’know, fucked in the brain a bit,” Nya flicked him on the side of his head and from the look of appall on her face, he had kicked back. “You’d get to be normal.”

Lloyd looked back and forth between both of his siblings, his eyebrows pulled together. “I tried to be normal with my dad and with Rumi and with Akita and none of it ever worked out. No.” Before either of the other ninja could interject, Lloyd tossed his bowl of cereal onto the breakfast counter behind him and stormed out.

-

“He did what?”

Nya threw her hands up in the air, using her feet to push her rolling chair away from the work desk and spin her across the room. “He just stormed out! Did not want to listen to us at all.” Jay pursed his lips as he looked up from the mech arm he was working on.

“That…doesn’t sound like him,” her yin said hesitantly. “You sure he was in a decent mood?” Nya scoffed.

“Of course he was fine, do you not think I can’t read my own brother?” Jay sighed and set down his screwdriver, moving the large magnification glass used to look at smaller mechanisms away from him.

“I didn’t say that,” he said wryly. “You and I both know that Lloyd can pretend that things are fine when they really aren’t.” Nya opened her mouth to say something but Jay beat her to it. “Don’t take it personally if you don’t always know what’s going on in that brain of his.” To Jay’s surprise, his partner snorted. “What’s so funny?”

“You could take some of that advice yourself, you know,” she said, scooting over to his desk. Jay blushed and ducked his head sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

“Yeah, well, I can deal it, I can’t take it.” Nya laughed a little more loudly at that and stretched her hand across the desk for Jay to take and lace their fingers together. She smiled at the sight of their intertwined hands but then sighed and let her head fall back against her chair. “You wanna tell me what’s going on through your brain?” he asked quietly. Nya sighed again, more deeply.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I thought he would be ecstatic. He’s wanted nothing more than something like this for…years.” Jay squeezed her hand.

“Maybe something’s changed,” he said. “He’s been different since Harumi.” Nya threw her free arm up in frustration.

“But that’s the thing, wouldn’t he not want her to take over his experiences? Wouldn’t he want to try again?” Jay frowned thoughtfully for a minute, his free hand mindlessly reaching for a fidget toy near his work tools.

“Remember when we talked about doing an official ceremony?” he asked out of the blue. Nya scrunched her face, confused, but nodded anyways.

“Yeah, and we decided against it.”

“Why did we decide no?” Nya gave Jay a look and he shrugged. “Humor me.”

“Well,” she started hesitantly, looking away from him, “I would need to wear white.”

“And?”

“And the reason why I couldn’t wear white is the same reason we decided against getting married.” Jay pulled the hand that was laced with his up to this mouth and pressed his lips against her skin before setting their hands back down.

“Do you think we should do it anyways?” he asked, and Nya turned her head so fast, her neck cracked audibly.

“What?” she asked, nearly yelling. “Absolutely not, that was hell for us, why would we ever want to relive it?” Jay shrugged again, biting down on his bottom lip so that it wouldn’t wobble. His formerly damaged eye watered dangerously but Nya tamped down the urge to wipe the tears away.

“Maybe it’s the same for Lloyd,” he said, his voice cracking in the middle. “Sensei Garmadon was gone nearly as fast as he came back and he tried falling in love with Harumi.” Jay laughed wetly and ducked his head to wipe his eyes before tears fell. Nya squeezed his hand gently and Jay sniffed, squeezing back, before lifting his head back up. “That’s like- a quintessential teenage experience for people who experience romance and that got so fucked up for him.”

Like one of Zane’s arrows hitting the practice target at breakneck speed, it dawned on Nya all of a sudden. “He doesn’t wanna try being normal because it’s always-” she cut herself off and swallowed hard. “Jeez,” she whispered. Jay sighed shakily. Nya slowly pulled her hand away, but not without pressing their palms together before running her hands through her hair. “Jeez, what do I do?”

“Just wait for a bit,” Jay said, letting go of the fidget toy in one hand in favor for his screwdriver. “You’re his big sister, Nya, he’s not gonna stay away for long.” Nya groaned and pressed her the meat of her palms into her eyes.

“I hate being patient.”

“You wanna help me work on this arm while you suffer?” Nya pulled her hands away from her face and turned to grin at her partner.

“You’re the best.” Jay just smirked and threw a pair of googles at her head.

-

Pixal and Zane showed up during his kitchen duty with facts about the health benefits to socializing with his peers. Cole talked about how much he loved the library his school had and conveniently remembered all the comic books they had. Wu commented during a guided mediation about the “joys of education”, which whatever, Lloyd knew everything he needed to know about fricking calculus, which is to say none at all. The resident nindroids were much more than glorified calculators, but if they could figure out the most complicated chemical formulas, why did anyone need Lloyd to know how to balance chemical formulas?

Jay was the only one Lloyd could be around in the monastery without the dangers of being indoctrinated; the issue was that Nya was in the workshop with her partner more often than not and Kai seemed to be really interested in learning how each individual part of the mechs worked.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to his siblings, except that he really didn’t. He regretted the way he talked to them and he wanted to apologise. He didn’t like the way words came out of his mouth these days and his aggression had little to do with Kai and Nya specifically.

Nonetheless, he didn’t want to revisit the topic at hand more than he wanted to clear the air, so. That’s where things were gonna stay for now.

Every meal, every training session, every patrol that he had to interact with his big brother and sister felt like the tension was wrapping rope around his neck tight enough to choke him. He hated not being able to talk to them and he knew that if he just went and said that he never wanted to talk about going back to school ever again, they’d drop it in zero seconds flat.

But that meant talking about why he never wanted to talk about it, and what did that mean in relation to his broken psyche and Lloyd wasn’t really ready for that.

When Lloyd woke up that day, he could already hear Jay and Pixal puttering around and if Pixal and Jay were up, then so were Zane and Nya. He groaned and pulled his pillow over his face to scream just a little bit before shoving it beneath his head.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

Rolling out of his bed, he grabbed the nearest sweater (probably one of Kai’s, but Lloyd didn’t dwell on it) and his binder sitting on top of his desk chair and struggled his way into both. Where he was going wouldn’t judge him for his sweatpants, but out of respect he pulled on a ratty pair of jeans.

On his desk sat a container for his contacts. He didn’t need them to see, his vision was just fine, but it was easier to hide in public if his eyes weren’t glowing bright green. His hand hovered over the container for a second before swiping them and going into the bathroom to put them in.

Running out of the bathroom to try and make it to his room before anyone spotted that he was up proved fruitless. As soon as he was about to slid his door shut behind him, Cole popped out of the fucking ether.

“Hey, green bean, didn’t know you were up,” he said, rolling one of his shoulders back with a satisfying crack. Lloyd turned on his heel to face his brother and laughed nervously, trying to keep from making eye contact. “Are you going with Zane downtown today? I heard Doomsday was having a sale today.” Inadvertently, Lloyd’s head peaked up at the news, but he immediately turned away towards his room with an uneasy chuckle.

“Nah,” he dragged out nonchalantly, “I’ll probably just hang around the monastery for a while. Get some good training in.” Lloyd moved to stretch his arm overexaggerating the movement. Cole still seemed pretty bleary from just waking up and Lloyd hoped and prayed he wouldn’t second guess Lloyd’s act. The older ninja squinted at him. For a solid thirty seconds, they stood outside the doorways to their rooms.

And then Cole shrugged. Lloyd blinked a few times. “Yeah, alright. Do you wanna spar later?” Lloyd sputtered for a second, in shock that that actually worked, before nodding and then shaking his head. Cole snorted, raising an eyebrow, “is that a yes or a no?”

“It’s a maybe…?” Lloyd said, the statement sounding more like a question. “I’ll see how I feel later, aha.” Lloyd smiled widely, a little too wide, but Cole didn’t seem to find anything odd with it.

“Well just make sure to eat something, don’t want you passing out.” Cole stepped past him, pressing a solid hand on Lloyd’s shoulder – and a lance of something shot through Lloyd’s chest. He inhaled sharply, and Cole turned his head, his eyes and the gentle creases on his face laced with concern. “You good, L? Is your shoulder hurting?” Lloyd found himself struggling to blink back tears, but he shook his head.  Cole’s bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Is it something you wanna talk about?”

The days of avoiding his family were weighing on him, Lloyd realized.

 “Uh-” He looked down, scuffing his foot against the creaky floorboard. “CouldIhaveahug?” Lloyd rushed out, swallowing nervously. “If not, it’s fine, I just was wondering-” Cole cut him off by yanking him forward and wrapping his burly arms around Lloyd’s admittedly much smaller frame and squeezing. Lloyd loved pressure, owned several different kids of weighted plushes, lap pads, and blankets, and Cole never ever forgot to give his younger brother an extra tight hug. Lloyd buried his head into Cole’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around as well, clinging to his brother’s tank top.

“You never have to be scared to ask, bud,” Cole said softly. Lloyd couldn’t muster up the will to say anything, the rock in his throat becoming too great for him to speak, but he did nod.

They stood there for a few more glorious seconds, before Lloyd released his grip and moved to step back. Cole gave him an extra squeeze before letting him go, keeping his hands settled onto Lloyd’s shoulder.

Lloyd couldn’t look up at Cole, knowing that as soon as his brother noticed the different colored contacts, he’d never get out of the monastery, but Cole didn’t make him do anything. He just leaned over and pressed a kiss to his little brother’s hand. “Let me know, if you wanna talk, alright, Lloyd?” The younger ninja nodded and used his sweater sleeve to wipe away at his eyes.

“I will,” he croaked, and he felt more than saw Cole’s soft smile before he let go and padded down the hallway towards the kitchen. Lloyd watched him go before stepping into his room to toss the container of contacts onto his desk and then went the opposite direction towards the monastery gates.

-

Skylor, in Lloyd’s humble opinion, was like his aunt.

Nya was his sister and thus involved in his everyday life. Kai was his brother, but acted like his pseudo dad half the time and if Skylor was dating Kai, well-

That made Skylor his aunt.

Explaining this logic to said aunt only made her laugh and ruffle his hair, but she never shot him down so Lloyd did what he does best and grew his family a little bit more. And Skylor was…great, best in words that could not be described.

She had a degree of separation from the rest of his family. If he spilled his guts to her, he knew with certainty that he wouldn’t have five other well-meaning but slightly smothering siblings and/or uncle asking if he was alright. He could bitch about this, that, and the other and she wouldn’t say a thing. If he felt like there were bugs under his skin and he was gonna scream if he spent one more second in the monastery? She’d hand him an apron and throw him into the noodle shop for a shift.

Most importantly, Skylor was his friend. He could just hang out with her and watch trashy reality T.V. or go shopping with her or help her with the shop. Despite having met her in less-than-ideal circumstances, Skylor lifted a little of the heaviness on his back and let him breathe for a while.

Lloyd knew her schedule probably better than Kai did and redirected his feet to take him up to Skylor’s apartment in the north side of the city.  This side of the city was probably his absolute favorite because so many stray cats lived around. A welcome bonus was that most of them were incredibly friendly and would roll over for gentle pets at just a click of his tongue, though he knew Skylor had photos from when a particularly jaded cat took out some anger issues on Lloyd’s face.

His favorite cat in existence, though, wasn’t any of the stray cats (he loved them all so much, though, he really did), but Skylor’s funky creature named Shogun. It felt so silly to look at him and call the silly guy Shogun, but that was his name and Skylor stuck by it and Lloyd loved him so much.

Getting to Skylor’s apartment building, he slipped into the lobby and waved at the receptionist, a Serbian guy named Nikola, before opening the door to the stairwell and taking the stairs three at a time. Skylor lived on the fifth floor, but Lloyd was a teenager with boundless energy and also a very anxious deposition at times. By the time he got to her door, he was just a little bit out of breath, both from the stairs and the conversation he had with a neighbor on the fourth floor asking how he was doing and if he had seen the latest Starfarer comic issue (which he had, and the new artist they hired definitely knew what they were doing, he was hyped for the new issue).

He didn’t bother with knocking and just slipped in his cat-shaped key that Skylor had gifted him a few months past.

He loved his cat-shaped key.

“Hey, Sky!” he called out, kicking off his shoes. No response. “I’m gonna steal your cat, Sky!”

“No, you’re not!” a voice called out from the office and Lloyd grinned as he padded further into the apartment. He peeked his head to find Skylor sitting at her rather ornate desk, her monitor and laptop sitting in front of her. Shogun sat on his bed on the desk, but at the sight of Lloyd, he leaped off the desk and straight for Lloyd’s feet. “How’s my favorite vegetable?” she asked, looking up from her computer.

Her hair was down, which was interesting. He saw her hair down semi-frequently, but he hadn’t really expected it today.

“Your hair’s down,” he pointed out, a bit needlessly. She brought a hand up to her hair, almost as if she hadn’t noticed.

“Yeah,” she said, “guess it is.” Lloyd raised an eyebrow at her but she doesn’t acknowledge the expression and goes to pull a file out of one of her drawers. Shogun chirps incessantly down at his feet and Lloyd stoops over to pick up the cat and let him figure himself out in Lloyd’s arms. As Shogun repositions himself accordingly, Lloyd shuffles over to the couch Skylor keeps in her office for him and flops over onto his back. She looks up over her monitor with her own raised eyebrows. “Your shoes aren’t muddying my nice couch, are they?”

Lloyd stuck his feet up into the air, kicking them around so she could see they were only socked and not shoe-ed. “No shoes here,” he said, stroking Shogun’s back. “I know better than to bring shoes into your holy sanctuary.” A balled up piece of paper hit the side of his head. “I’ve been hit,” he gasped dramatically. Lloyd reached under Shogun to pick him up and shake him gently, “Shogun, your mother has betrayed me.” He heard Skylor snort and a pleased sort of warmth kicked up in his chest.

“You think you’re funny, kid,” she said. Lloyd smiled.

“It’s ‘cause I am. And if I wasn’t, you woulda kicked me out already.” He gave her a toothy grin. “I’m your free entertainment.”

“Or a free food vacuum. Don’t think I didn’t notice all my pasta disappearing overnight.” Lloyd waved her off, turning his attention back to Shogun balled up on his chest. “I swear that cat loves you more than me.”

“I’m basically part cat, Sky, we’re brethren.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” she said, amused. They both settled into silence and Lloyd let his eyes drift shut. The purring from the creature on his chest reverberated throughout his body and Lloyd felt his own purring mechanism kick up slightly like a motor engine. “Before you fall asleep,” Sky called out and he blearily opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to look at her.

“Wassup?”

“Kai talked to me.” Lloyd swallowed harshly and his neck prickled like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over him. His purring stopped and Shogun mrrped concernedly.

“Yeah?” he said, focusing on Shogun in front of him. “What’d he say?”

“That you won’t talk to him.” He winced.

“Did he tell you why?” he asked. “Because if he told you why then I think you’d be on my side because he’s just being weird about it all-”

“Lloyd, why don’t you want to go back to school?” she asked, rather directly and Lloyd sighed deeply.

“Oh, we’re really in it now, Shogun,” he said to the cat and he heard Skylor sigh. Her chair rolled across the rubber mat beneath her desk setup and he watched her come from out around her desk and sit at the end of the couch. She lifted his feet and set them in her lap, keeping a steady hand on his ankle.

Her hair being down made this whole thing feel way more vulnerable than Lloyd thought was strictly necessary, but he had to admit it suited her. She didn’t look softer perse, but she looked more…real. Like she wasn’t just some little battle piece with perfectly slicked back hair to be pushed around a map. When she looked across the couch to Lloyd, he had to move his eyes to face the ceiling.

“Why?”

“You know why,” he mumbled and her thumb pressed into his ankle.

“I don’t. Use your words.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“You’re not a kid, Lloyd, and you hate being treated like one.” Her eyes burned into his head. He stayed silent and so did she, but her grip remained strong on his ankle.

“You were there with- Harumi and everything.” Skylor’s hand twitched against his skin and he almost regretted bringing it all up, but she asked why he didn’t want to go so she was going to find out. “And you were there when my father banished himself.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, “yeah, I was.” Lloyd inhaled.

“Kai kept saying-” Lloyd’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat, “kept saying that this would be a chance to do something normal again.” Skylor didn’t say anything and Lloyd knew he had to keep going. There was no easy way out of this.

Damnit, Kai.

“I don’t think he really understands that there never was a normal,” he croaked. “There’s nothing for me to go back to.” He exhaled slowly, trying to keep control of his breathing. Shogun stretched out a paw from his loafing position to rest gently on Lloyd’s chin and Lloyd was surprised to feel tears streaming down the sides of his face. “With- with her and then my dad, they were the closest things I had to normal.”

“What happened with Harumi wasn’t normal, Lloyd,” Skylor said all of a sudden. “She wasn’t supposed to be like that.” Lloyd waved away the concern.

“No, I know that,” he said thickly. “It’s just the- the falling in love part. That part.” He hazarded a glance at Skylor’s face, but her expression was impassive. “And y’know, every kid wants their dad around, er-” He looked again, wincing slightly. Skylor cracked a small smile and raised an eyebrow. “Most kids,” he amended, “most kids want their dad around. And most kids have their dad around and I never did so when he was there and he was teaching me, it was-”

“That was the closest thing to normal for you,” she said softly.

“Yeah.” Lloyd deflated slightly, not having noticed the tension in his shoulders and how he had been waving his arms around. “Yeah, that’s- I don’t know what normal is. I don’t think I want normal.”

Skylor finally turned her gaze away from him and Lloyd felt that it was safe enough to look back down towards her. “You're wearing your contacts,” she said. Lloyd blinked and then nodded.

“Yeah, just- didn’t wanna be recognized, I guess.”

“You look like Kai with them in.”

And that was kinda the point when he first got them. His eyes had always been connecting to him to something all his life, whether it be to his dad or to his legacy or to his powers and abilities. Lloyd liked having the choice to give all of that up and just be Kai’s younger brother, to match with him and Nya and pretend that in the evening he wouldn’t have to slip the contacts out and stare at an unfamiliar gaze once more.

“Do I?” he asked quietly.

“You should talk to him,” she said.

“I know.”

“Are you going to?” Lloyd shrugged. Shogun was dislodged slightly and he meowed his displeasure.

“I want to.”

They lapsed back into silence that was swiftly broken by the ringing of Skylor’s phone. They both turned to stare at where it lit up and vibrating against her desk.

“Did you by chance tell anyone that you were here?” Skylor asked, a dangerous lilt to her voice. Lloyd turned a sheepish pink and shrunk into his sweater; she just sighed and then laughed, sinking back into the couch. “It’s fine, they’ll find us eventually.”

-

Kai kicked up the speed on his mo-ped, swerving between various vehicles stuck in traffic on the free-way. Had he been literally anyone else, the police would have pulled him over ten times over already, but sure, being the protector of the continent had its perks.

Its very few perks.

One such not-perk, though, was that his younger brother was stealthy enough to slip away from the monastery without anyone noticing. His room was empty, training room left untouched, and even his favorite cereal was sitting innocently in the cabinet the way it was the previous day. Kai turned every stone over, looking in the workshop, the tunnels running through the monastery, and even took a visit to Sensei’s Garmadon old monastery and its hiding spots.

Literally nothing.

Kai had felt tempted to post on chirp that Lloyd was probably out and about in the city, just to see if any random citizen would have seen him walking about or maybe being dragged unconscious into the sewers by some new villain of the week. But he wasn’t that desperate, no, he was gonna wait to use that one.

Make Lloyd really sorry for freaking him out.

Finally, Cole surfaced from the kitchen, saying that he had seen Lloyd that morning and that-

“I don’t know, man, he just seemed odd,” Cole said quietly, crossing his arms. “He was super shifty, but I figured he would spit it out eventually.”

“So you don’t know anything about where he is,” Kai gritted out, “great, thank you for nothing.” Cole rolled his eyes and Kai wanted to punch the look off of his teammate’s face.

“Kai, come on, I know you’re worried, but don’t take it out on me.” Kai just glared and Cole sighed. “Text Skylor and see if she’s seen him. Green bean likes her cat a lot.” The fire ninja just kinda blinked before some of the tightness in his body left and Cole smiled. He clapped Kai’s shoulder before moving down the hall. “Let me know when you find him!”

So, yeah, maybe Cole had a point that Lloyd really did have a bond with that stupid cat that hated Kai’s guts, and he knew that Skylor and Lloyd had gotten really close throughout their time since the Tournament and especially through everything with the resistance.

But then Skylor wouldn’t pick up her phone.

Okay, fine, one missed call is normal, but then he tried again, and again, and a fourth time, and this time Kai was solidly hyperventilating as he burst through the monastery gates on his clunky mo-ped and onto the highway leading him directly into Ninjago City.

When he finally reached Skylor’s apartment, the urge to simply throw his precious bike down onto the sidewalk and book it into the building was too real. He simply did not have the sanity or the patience to park the vehicle properly.

It didn’t take long for him to bound through the lobby and up the stairs. While running down the hallways, he fumbled for his keys and skidded slightly as he came to the stop in front of her apartment. As he started to push the door open, it started to move without his volition.

Behind the door, pulling it open, was his brother. Alive, whole, his eyes and nose red – probably from crying, his nose always gets super red from crying.

“Kai,” Lloyd said a little dumbly. All at once, the adrenaline left Kai’s system, and he keeled over, hands on his knees.

“Holy shit,” he wheezed. He became very aware of how out of breath he was and the pounding in his head nearly overwhelmed him. Lloyd got a very panicked look on his face and he stepped forward, his hands already out and fluttering nervously around his brother.

“Uh-” he turned back and called out, “Sky?” Kai already started waving him off, measuring his breathes carefully to make sure he didn’t pass out.

“I’m good,” he said, huffing. “I’m good, I just-” Kai picked himself back up, using the doorframe as a crutch to help him stand back up. Wincing, he rubbed at his chest.

Lloyd opened his mouth to say something, sinking deeper into his hoodie (hey, wasn’t that his old sweatshirt?). He closed his mouth, scrunching  his face a little bit before pitching forward and wrapping his arms around Kai.

The older ninja stood there gaping for a second, his arms hovering weirdly around his brother before settling and pulling him closer.

It hadn’t struck him until then just how long it had been since he had hugged Lloyd. Their argument had been a week and a half ago, but unless hell and high water got in the way of Kai and his younger brother, they didn’t go for too long without being around each other.

Kai wasn’t a parent. He didn’t think he ever would be, not after everything that happened in his life, but there was something about raising a kid and then thinking they’re gone. Even if you know they’re probably fine, you feel as if you’ll never breathe again until you can hold them and clean their scrapes and make sure no one will ever hurt them under your watch again. And that’s not how life worked, not when he and Nya were just kids in Ignacia and it didn’t work now that he was a part of an elite group of protectors. He couldn’t help but try, though.

Lloyd sniffled and buried his head into Kai’s chest. “I’ll go back to school,” he said. Kai had to strain to hear him through the muffling from the fabric. “I don’t-” Lloyd shifted so just the side of his face rested on Kai’s sternum. First Master, he was so small. “I don’t know what normal is, but I’ll try to figure it out for you.” Kai smoothed his hand over Lloyd’s curls.

“Normal is bullshit,” he said authoritatively, “and I regret saying that you should try and go back to normal.” Lloyd snorted and something eased in Kai’s chest. He grasped Lloyd’s shoulders and pulled him back gently to be able to look him in the eyes. Lloyd was wearing the contacts that made his eyes look the same warm brown that he and Nya had; it made Kai Smith, macho extraordinaire, want to cry for a long time. “If you don’t ever want to go back to school, that’s okay. If you want to quit being a ninja and go back to school to get a million degrees, that’s also okay.”

“The quitting being a ninja part sounds a little enticing,” Lloyd said thickly, rubbing under his eyes and Kai huffed a small laugh, “but honestly- I think doing something normal would be good for me.”

“Normal is fake,” Kai said softly and Lloyd burst out into giggles, a sound Kai hadn’t heard in a long time. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd said, “but I think everyone has a normal, y’know? I wanna find mine.” Kai searched Lloyd’s face, searching for anything that would hint at his brother just caving to whatever Kai wanted, but he didn’t find it.

“Alright, kid,” he said quietly, “we’ll find your normal.”

-

In the end, Lloyd had hesitantly chosen a botany class at the local community college to try out.

Zane had inquired as to why botany specifically and Lloyd wasn’t sure he had an answer for him.

Maybe it was because it all involved something tangible, rather than the energy he’d been taught out to manipulate all his life. Maybe because he saw himself in plants. Maybe because he was actually part cat and wanted to grow his own cat nip.

Whatever the reason, he was going and-

And he enjoyed it. Honestly.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, he went to the Ninjago Community College, room 203 in the Environmental Sciences building and on Fridays, he met with some classmates in the community center’s greenhouse.

One classmate, his favorite classmate and the only one Lloyd had psyched himself up enough to give his number to, was Brad Tudabone.

It was weird seeing Brad. Sometimes Lloyd looked at him and could only stand to breathe through the painful memories of Darkley’s and his mother and missing his dad every day, but then Brad would lift up a pot of flowers just to baby-talk to it and he realized that those days were far behind him.

Brad taught him about the different brands of soil and which were the best, the different tools, and helped Lloyd plant his very own tree.

Lloyd didn’t tell Brad this, or even any of his siblings, but when the tree eventually needed to be repotted, he’d been scoping out a spot where his father’s monastery used to be. He didn’t want to keep going back and feeling like he was in a cemetery. His dad was all about new beginnings anyway.

“Check out this sweater I got,” Brad said, pulling down his shirt so that Lloyd could get a better look at the writing. It said The earth laughs in flowers with various flower drawings on it and he laughed.

They were sitting side by side on the roof of Brad’s apartment building, a kinda run-down place where he stayed with various flatmates. The view wasn’t great – Borg Tower and the surrounding skyscrapers interrupted the horizon – but it was warm with a nice breeze. Brad’s presence at his side made his head a little heavy, thick with cotton, but not with grief or nausea. It was just pleasant. He felt good.

“That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” Lloyd said, gently ribbing Brad with his elbow. His friend just rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

“You’re just jealous I have style,” he harrumphed. Lloyd snorted and let his head fall on Brad’s shoulder for a second before picking it back up. Brad  

“Sure. ‘Style,’” he said, making air quotes. Brad laughed and Lloyd couldn’t help the smile that pulled at the corner of his lips. “I didn’t realize how much I missed being around people.” Brad looked at him.

“Really?” Lloyd shrugged. “You’re like a huge personality now.”

“You know how all those super happy celebrities end up coming out with how lonely everything was?” Brad winced and bumped his shoulder against Lloyd’s sympathetically.

“Jeez, I never thought about it like that.” Lloyd hummed.

“Not a lot of people do, it’s not something you’d think about.” Brad tilted his head from side to side, thinking a question over in his brain.

“Is that why you came to the classes?” Brad twisted his hands around. “Because I just- a lot of us from school tried to get in touch with you, to see how you were doing, but that’s hard to do when you’re-”

“-a destined ninja?” Lloyd finished for him. Brad snorted, letting his head dip forward. “Yeah, my brother prompted the idea, my aunt was the one who convinced me.”

“Are you glad you came back?” Lloyd grinned, his eyes falling shut and then fluttering back open.

“Yeah, I am,” he said. “I’m glad we reconnected. I’m glad I’m doing things that let me mess up and the worst that happens is a plant doesn’t make it to the end of the week.”

“Ruby will never forgive you for that, you know,” Brad muttered. Lloyd laughed and smacked his friend upside the head.

“Ruby was a rose bush that needed to die anyways and Ruby Jr. is thriving.” Brad smiled, his eyes lighting up.

“Yeah, you’re getting pretty good, Lloyd,” Brad complimented and the praise settled like warm chocolate in Lloyd’s chest.

Looking back out at the sun, just barely shining beyond the horizon, Lloyd came to the closest he’d ever been to peace. First Master, normal never felt so great.