Chapter Text
There were a lot of things Brad didn’t know.
How to write in cursive, though he was getting better. How his sisters could paint their nails without getting any of the coloured stuff on their fingers accidentally, but he was getting better at that too. Why his dad used to turn the TV off when the news showed videos of skeletons in armour. Skeletons being in armour (Brad felt like a lot of people were glossing over that one).
The most prominent one, and the most infuriating, was the blonde kid.
Brad had transferred to the new school two weeks before his semester break, right at the end of November.
Brad didn’t understand that either.
“Why not wait until the new year?” He’d asked with his nose scrunched and arms crossed under the table. They were sitting in the living room, plates still uncleared from their dinner earlier.
His parents had looked at each other funny. Brad hated when adults did that, hiding things from you just because they thought you weren’t old enough. He told them such, and his dad let out a weary sigh.
“We just think, with all that’s been going on, it might be a good idea for you to get away from everything. It looks like a good school, they even specialise in self-defence and real life skills.”
Brad assumed he was talking about the skeletons in armour, but he wouldn’t know much, because they kept turning the TV off-
It turned out his sisters didn’t need to go because they were tougher than him.
“Sorry, Brad, but maybe they’ll teach you how to stop crying all the time,” they’d said to him from where he was crying under his bed the night before he was supposed to leave. He understood the irony, yeah, but he still didn’t want to go. He had friends here, he liked his house here, so what if the attacks were getting closer! Brad might be eight, but he was tall for his age. He could learn those apparently necessary life skills that his parents were so concerned about from home, thank you very much. But no matter what he argued, they weren’t persuaded.
So next morning he was dressed in the stupid itchy uniform that he had to wear, whole life packed into one small carry-on. They used to go travelling all the time when he was younger, so Brad’s gotten used to living out of one bag, but there was some awful sense of finality to it this time that made Brad want to vomit. They talked about sending him there for high-school too, which was practically for the rest of his life.
Brad resolved to get tougher before he’d ever get that old - he’d come home tougher than all of them, and then maybe then his family would let him stay.
His parents couldn’t afford to take time off work to drive him all the way into the outskirts where the boarding school was, so he’d taken the bus all by himself. Yet another reason why Brad was tough and capable and didn’t need to go, but whatever. No one greeted him at the gates which was weird, but fine, because he was tough and he didn’t need anyone to greet him anyway. In fact, Brad liked how independent this new school was! The halls were eerily quiet when he walked inside, but he wasn’t scared. Brad wasn’t scared of anything.
That was where Brad met him.
He was a head shorter than Brad, looked a couple years younger too. The uniform would have looked stupid on him with how big it was, patched up in a bunch of places like it was his only set.
His hair was a shiny gold and his eyes were an even shinier ruby, like he was made of jewels.
Brad thought he looked kind of pretty.
Then he hated that he thought that, hated it so much his face got hot and his chest felt heavy, so he yelled “What are you looking at?” and watched as the boy ran away.
Brad came to learn the boy’s name was Lloyd.
He also came to learn that was one of the only consistent things his classmates agreed on - some people said he was born in the school, some people said he was abandoned, some people said he didn’t have a mother at all, just spawned in one day.
“That’s stupid, right?” Brad asked Gene one night, after they’d turned the lights out. Gene had told him the last one, and Brad might not know a lot, but children don’t just spawn.
“Not when you know who is dad is,” Gene had answered seriously. “With Lord Garmadon as your father, anything is possible.”
Brad still thought it all sounded pretty fake, until he caught the boy’s eye in the hall one day and realised he’d seen that shade of red before. On the TV, before his parents realised he was watching, before they changed the channel, he had seen those eyes. That time the red had looked a little less shiny, a little more like blood, with an army of shadows and skeletons behind them.
Brad felt like his skin was on fire. That boy was the reason Brad had to leave his home, had to leave his friends. Everything that was wrong was all his fault.
Brad lunged.
—
He felt bad about it after, when he was sitting on a stool outside the principles office. Lloyd was inside getting yelled at, which Brad was starting to feel a little bad about too considering Lloyd didn’t even fight back.
Then door opened, and Lloyd tumbled out looking even more pathetic with his stupid baggy clothes and an ice pack on his face.
Brad went to stand up, to rush into the office and get his punishment if it meant he wouldn’t have to be next to him, but the Principle held up her hand.
“Just a minute, Mr. Tudabone. I need to call your parents first, you can come in a moment.”
Then the door shut, and Lloyd was standing next to him, and Brad was trying not to stare at the dried blood on Lloyd’s lip that Brad had put there so he looked at swollen knuckles instead.
“Sorry I punched you.”
Brad kept his eyes on his hands. He knew Gene would be mad at him for saying sorry, (“you’re not supposed to apologise to Garmadon’s kid, he’s supposed to apologise to you”), but Brad’s parents would get even more mad if he didn’t. Brad kinda hoped those rumours about Lloyd’s mum abandoning him were true- he doesn’t want to get scolded by the wife of the Underworld.
“‘S fine. Happens all the time”.
There was a pause before Lloyd spoke again.
“I think it was the floor that actually broke my nose. Your punch was really weak”.
Brad looked up at Lloyd for the first time since they got here. Lloyd was glancing around the room, intentional and casual at the same time. There was something challenging in his ruby eyes when they finally skirted to Brad, something snarky beyond the fear and beauty that Brad first focused on. It put something light in Brad’s chest.
“So you were bested by the floor?” Brad quipped back.
“No, you were.”
Lloyd waited until Brad was done in the Principle’s office to walk out with him. They never talked about it again.
——
It ended up being a good thing he and Lloyd became friends. Soon the term was over, and everyone left with their parents for the holidays. It was safer for Brad to stay there or something, his parents started telling him over the phone and Brad hung up before they could explain, and apparently Lloyd didn’t have anywhere else to go, so they had three months and a whole boarding school to themselves.
“How’d you get here?” Brad asked one night in their room.
Lloyd sneaked into the Brad’s dorm to take Gene’s spot a couple days after everyone left. There were only two adults staying over the holidays, and Brad didn’t recognise them as teachers, but he thought it was better not to ask questions. As long as they got food and were otherwise left alone, Brad was happy.
Lloyd tugged on the string coming off his pyjamas, eyes downcast. Brad knew talking about some things made Lloyd sad, like his mum, or his uncle, or where his home is, but Brad was running out of other things to know. He already knew Lloyd’s favourite comic book and his favourite lollies (they had the same taste, Brad was pleased to find). He also found out Lloyd wasn’t years younger than him, he was just seven and tiny.
He wasn’t sure what else there was to ask.
Lloyd fiddled with the string for so long Brad thought he’d fallen asleep, until Lloyd said quietly, “Mum left me”.
Brad didn’t really know what that meant, whether she left him here, at the building, or just in general, so he asked.
Lloyd tugged on the string harder.
“Here.” He whispered in the kind of voice you got before you cry.
Brads eyes widened. He’d never seen Lloyd cry before. He didn’t really know what to do. Whenever Brad cried, his mum would cuddle him in his bed, and say things that made him feel better. That seemed like an alright thing to do until Brad climbed over into Lloyd’s bed, lay next to him to cuddle, and felt Lloyd freeze.
“What are you doing.”
Lloyd sounded scared.
“Cuddling. This is what my mum does,” Brad said calmly, because his mum talking calmly helps him too. He almost wanted to get off the bed and laugh, pretend that it was stupid and he was just joking, but Lloyd’s voice sounded very small, and very scared, and Brad hated that. “It makes you feel better, you’ll see,” Brad said more firlmly this time. Slowly, Lloyd dropped his shoulders and leant back onto Brad.
“Oh” Lloyd mumbled. He still sounded like he wanted to cry though, so Brad went back to talking.
“She probably didn’t want to leave, Lloyd, no mum wants to leave. Maybe she’s just busy with her job! My mum gets busy and I don’t see her for days sometimes, so maybe-“ Brad continued to ramble, hoping it was more how you said it than what you said.
Brad cut off when he felt Lloyd shake against his chest.
“Um.” He asked. “Lloyd?”
“Really?” Lloyd whispered, turning back in the bed to face Brad. His eyes were even shinier than rubies now that he was crying, but Brad found he didn’t care about that anymore.
“Do you mean it?” Lloyd asked again.
Brad doesn’t remember exactly what he said, only that Lloyd was relying on it, so Brad nodded like he’d never been more sure in his life.
“Absolutely,” Brad whispered back, because this was one of those whisper conversations apparently.
Then Lloyd flung his arms around Brad, and Brad felt a split second of terror as Lloyd cried the worst cry Brad had ever heard. He rubbed circles on Lloyd’s back, like his mum used to do, but that made him cry even harder. Brad was doing everything wrong but he wasn’t sure why, so he asked again.
“What’s wrong?” He whispered to Lloyd.
“I don’t know!” Lloyd sobbed loudly, which didn’t fit the whisper conversation, but anyway.
Brad didn’t understand that- how someone could not know what was wrong, but questions seemed to be the wrong route so he doubled down with the talking.
“That’s okay, Lloyd. I won’t leave you, no matter what - I promise! We can always have sleepovers and eat together if you want and have play dates-“ Lloyd sobbed even louder at that, and Brad was just about to give up, when Lloyd went quiet like a baby.
Brad thought he might’ve fallen asleep again, but Lloyd’s hands tightened around Brad.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
There were a lot of things Brad didn’t know. Why Lloyd had gotten so upset, what he was saying thank you for, and why he doesn’t like talking about his family.
But here are some things Brad does know: he knows how to write cursive, because Lloyd has pretty handwriting and taught Brad over the holidays. How to paint his nails without getting it on his fingers, because Lloyd let him test it on his hands until Brad could do it perfectly, no matter how bad he was at the start.
And that Lloyd is his friend that Brad made a promise to.
Brad knows how to keep his promises.