Work Text:
It was around the middle of the week, Lloyd was already feeling stressful. Crime has risen quite a lot recently. He was already dealing with some mental struggles ranging from Garmadon being a pain in his ass, having reoccurring memories from his past, and being leader of the team in general; all of those have been piling on the weight of his shoulders.
Words couldn’t explain how pissed he was.
In the courtyard, he was beating up all of the dummies, but not in the normal way. He was going full out on them, powers, fists and all. Kai seemed to notice since his ‘Big Brother Senses’ started going off and he decided to follow him outside. Lloyd noticed but was too caught up in his thoughts to care. Kai was just sitting down on the steps that lead inside the monastery, observing his every move, making sure to be ready if anything were to go wrong. Lloyd took down the last dummy with an aggravated huff. He stayed on top of it for several moments until he started to breathe heavily.
Lloyd’s thoughts started to run through his head. ‘I wish time could stand still just for a bit so I wouldn’t have to do this bullshit. Destiny? Destiny my ass, I didn’t even ask for this life. Why can’t I be normal? My father’s already a pain in my ass, I hate this, I hate this, I HATE-‘
“Hey, hey, Lloyd. Breathe, breathe okay?”
Lloyd was snapped out of his thoughts as he noticed a worried Kai rushing over to his side. Lloyd looked up at him only for a solid second but then looked back down. “Sorry-“
Kai knelt down and grabs one of his hands, “Don’t say that. Look at me please.”
Lloyd didn’t want to, but he slowly looked up at his big brother. Kai gave him a nod and Lloyd immediately knew what he needed to do. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. In and out.
Once he was calmed, he looked back at Kai, nodding back at him, signaling that his anger was tamed. “Good..” Kai soothed.
“So I’ll give you two options,” Kai starts rubbing his baby brother’s back, “we can talk about it now, or we can go get ice cream, walk around the local town, and then we talk about it when we get back.”
Lloyd sniffs, “ice cream sounds good right now…”
“Then ice cream you shall get, lil bro.”
The two walk inside the monastery to get dressed out of their usual gis, and into more comfortable but still presentable clothing.
“So, what flavors are you thinking of getting, green machine?” Kai asks calmly with a smile trying to calm Lloyd more.
“Mm, definitely chocolate, and maybe cookies and cream.” Lloyd puts on a comfortable sweatshirt. “You sure about that, bud? I’m more a cookie dough fan.” Kai ruffles his hair playfully. “Of course I’m sure, dummy.” Lloyd softly smiles.
The oldest and youngest were about to head out the door until Kai stopped for a moment. “Hey,” Lloyd looked at Kai with a confused expression, “you’re doing great, you know that?”
“Uh, I don’t-“
“Lloyd.”
Lloyd looks down.
“Believe me. You’re doing so amazing right now,” Kai plants a kiss in his hair. “as our leader, my little brother, and as a person in general.”
“…Thank you, Kai. You’re right.”
Kai smiles and opens the door, “Now let’s go get you that ice cream, you sugar monster. I can carry you on my back for a bit if you want.”
Lloyd was already hopping on Kai’s back without warning. “Let’s go hair gel!” “Hey, my hair is absolutely fabulous and takes a lot of time to prepare thank you very much.”
They laughed together as they headed down the mountain where the monastery stood.